


A History of the Turks

by Licoriceallsorts



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 04:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7603219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Licoriceallsorts/pseuds/Licoriceallsorts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How the Turks came to be, why Veld hired Vincent, what they think of each other, and how that all worked out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Veld

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EchoThruTheWoods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoThruTheWoods/gifts).



> This fic contains an enormous amount of personal world-building, some of which is headcanon and some of which I invented for the purposes of the plot. The world of FFVII must have had a history before the advent of Shinra, a history from which Shinra emerged, and which Shinra then did its best to erase from human memory. This fic describes a little of that history, but is mostly about the relationship between Veld and Vincent and what it means, to each of them, to be a Turk. 
> 
> I don't want to lead anyone on under false pretenses, so please be aware that in this fic, at least, Veld and Vincent are strictly bros. 
> 
> For the purposes of this fic I gave names to many places that are nameless on the canon world map. For easy reference, you can find a map with all my places labelled on it, plus a brief explanation of why I chose those names, in the appendix.

            The Grasslands village had been comprehensively bombed; the chocobo flocks that once filled the meadows had been eaten or press-ganged, or had fled. But the well still gave fresh water, and the burnt-out village hall that now served as the field HQ for the 3rd Kalm Gunners had half a roof to keep the rain off, which was more than the men in the trenches enjoyed, crouching under canvas with bilgewater up to their ankles. Veld had spent half a year in the trenches. He knew how lucky he was to be here. The afternoon was shaping up to be lovely: a spring breeze had blown away the rain-clouds, birds were singing in the fruit-trees, and the guns had fallen silent, for a change. One could almost forget there was a war on.

Veld, however, was given no change to forget. His C.O. had summoned him. He sprinted through the village with all the exuberance of extreme youth, bounding up the hall steps three at a time and through the double doorway from which the doors themselves had been lost, blown off their hinges. Here he stopped abruptly, and gave a smart salute. The Colonel had company: a civ in a tweed suit, leather brogues on his feet, wire-rim glasses on his nose, his thick hair and bushy moustache both lightly streaked with grey.

 _Another fundi_ , thought Veld. They came, they saw, they went away, and they never had any answers.

“Ah, Veld, there you are,” said the Colonel. “This is Dr Faremis Gast, the number two science chap at Shinra Inc. Gast, this is my A.D.C., Captain Pieter Veld. He’ll take you to the hospital, show you our cases. Let me know what you think you think you can do for them.”

Veld saluted again and led the Shinra man out into the sunshine, down the steps and onto a boardwalk that criss-crossed the muddy courtyard. “So,” he said, “You’re a doctor?”

“A doctor of biochemistry,” said Dr Gast, using one hand to shield his eyes against the sun.

“Can you help them?”

“That remains to be seen.”

The weight of their footsteps pressed the planks down into the mud, squeaking, squelching. Dr Gast looked vaguely alarmed, possibly for his fine city footwear. Veld wouldn’t have described his own boots as waterproof, but he had a good warm pair of socks on, a gift from his mother, and the luxury of knowing he could hang them in front of a fire tonight.

 “Looks like you’ve had a lot of rain,” said Dr Gast.

“Three weeks.”

 “You must be glad to be here, and not at the front.”

“I go back and forth,” said Veld.

"How far away is it?”

"Half a mile.”

Dr Gast glanced nervously over his shoulder towards the east. “So close? I hadn’t realised.”

Veld had no desire to talk about the front with this _fundi_. What was there to say? The front was exactly where it had always been; it hadn’t moved more than a few feet in the last eight months, and until the Shinra Corporation, or somebody, came up with something brilliant to break the stalemate, that was exactly where it would remain, possibly for all eternity.

To change the subject, he asked, “Have they found a cure?” He said _they_ , but he meant Shinra. All the soldiers were the same. In the three years and five months that had passed since this war broke out, the belief had crept up on them that Shinra held the answer to every problem. Top brass didn’t seem to know what they were doing, but Shinra did. The general feeling was that if salvation was going to come from anywhere, it would come from The Company.

“Let’s say we’re working on it,” Gast replied.

The regimental field hospital must have been a rich man’s mansion once. It had come through the bombing relatively intact. The holes in the roof had been patched with tarpaulin. Today the nurses had thrown up all the windows to let in the sunshine. Veld opened the door and led the way inside, where the smell of carbolic soap was, at first, overwhelming. Dr Gast put a handkerchief to his nose.

“It gets worse,” said Veld. “Straight ahead – it’s the door at the end of the corridor.”

He stood back to let Dr Gast go through, and wasn’t surprised to see him recoil as if he’d been struck in the face. This was the cleanest ward in the hospital; the sisters scrubbed it three times a day; but nothing, no amount of bleach, could blot out the bitter stench of mako. It was in their sweat. It was in their tears.

Matron now appeared to escort them between the rows of beds. Each case of Mako poisoning manifested itself differently. There seemed no way to predict which men would be ruined and which men would be spared. The worst ones lay comatose, mindless husks sporting strange deformities: webbed fingers, clubbed nails, horny nubs on their foreheads. Even to a man like Veld, who over this last year had grown hardened to suffering, their groans were pitiful to hear. Other cases were well enough to sit up, get out of bed, write letters or play cards. The only visible mark of their affliction was the faint blue tint, or taint, in their eyes.

Matron said to Dr Gast, “In the night, when they can’t sleep – their eyes glow.”

They came to a locked door set with a small window made of reinforced glass. Matron pulled the curtain back to let Dr Gast take a look. Veld knew what he was seeing: a large man, heavily sedated with sleep materia, lying on a mattress on the floor, his wrists, knees and ankles bound with mythril shackles. Nothing else could hold him.

“His strength is unreal,” said Matron.

Gast nodded. “It’s a documented side effect. Uncommon, but not _that_ uncommon. He was a gunner?”

“You _do_ know this is an artillery regiment?”

“And he was handling large amounts of raw mako on a daily basis?”

 His questions were irritating her; Veld could see that. Matron burnt on a short fuse and with what she had to deal with every day, Veld didn’t blame her. She looked as if she was itching to give this Shinra _fundi_ a good dressing-down. _Wasting my time!_ _Aren’t you supposed to be a doctor?_ Veld had to swallow a laugh.

Controlling herself, she replied, “I know of nothing else that can do this kind of damage.”

“Yes,” said Gast, “We’re seeing it more and more. There have been similar cases with the workers in the reactors.”

“Can anything be done to help them?”

“I suppose… Protective gear….”

“And when are we going to get some?”

But though Gast was still peering through the little glass window, his thoughts seemed elsewhere, his attention focused on something, or some idea, far removed from this hospital ward and its neat rows of private tragedies. Apparently thinking aloud, he murmured, “If we could control for the side effects… dose to weight… Once the screening process has been perfected… but we’re running out of time.”

 _I‘ll tell you who’s running out of time,_ thought Veld. _Janko Retief._

Janko was the name of the man in the mythril shackles. He and Veld had never been friends, exactly, but they’d always known each other. In Kalm, everybody knew everybody else. Janko had been in the year above Veld at school, not much of a scholar, but popular, happy-go-lucky, a favourite with the girls. Because of his size, he’d played goalkeeper for every sport. He liked to drink and laugh, play chequers and arm-wrestle. Money burned a hole in his pocket. After finishing school, he and Veld had been apprentices together. In a town famous for its clocks, Veld’s father was the leading citizen, the master of the clockmaker’s guild. Young Veld had never imagined doing anything else. He had inherited an aptitude for the work: he enjoyed fiddling with tiny pieces, fitting them all together, making them spin, seeing the grand design. Janko didn’t have the same knack. His fingers were too big, too clumsy. He talked about leaving town, maybe going to Junon, finding work with Shinra.

When the war broke out they both rushed to enlist. Nobody wanted to miss the great adventure. Veld was made a officer and given command of one hundred and twenty men. Private Janko Retief was given a big mako gun to drive. His joy was complete.

About nine months into the war, when the full scale of the casualties was becoming apparent, Veld’s father pulled strings to secure his son’s appointment as the Colonel’s A.D.C. You couldn’t call it 100% safe work, but it was safer than the trenches. And now Janko lay on the floor of a hospital ward, rabid with mako poisoning, and Veld lay awake at night trying to figure out the best way to put him out of his misery.

The blare of a siren interrupted his thoughts.

“Incoming,” Matron sighed. “We could do with another three dozen beds, Dr Gast, if you want to do something for us.”

They followed her out to the yard. Six trucks, sunk halfway to their axels in mud, were unloading their cargoes of casualties onto stretchers. Matron moved to take charge. Three more trucks pulled in, this time loaded with corpses, stiff, bloated, black-faced, stacked like firewood. At a rough estimate, Veld reckoned there were three dead for every man wounded. So many lives cut short, ruined. So many broken hearts. So much pain and fear. _This can’t go on_ , he thought. And he knew he wasn’t the only one who thought it.

Now Matron came storming back, her face red with anger aimed at the Shinra _fundi_. “They have mako weapons,” she raged. “Our enemies – they have Shinra weapons.”

“That’s impossible – “

“I know wounds. I know weapons. I’m telling you, they’re killing our boys with _your_ weapons.

.

            Three months later, the front had advanced a quarter of a mile, the draft had been introduced, and Veld was home on leave when he was lured to a cocktail party by the promise of an introduction to the Vice-President of Shinra, Inc. Veld wanted to have words with that man. Words like _traitor_ and _profiteer_ and _what the hell’s going on with the weapons? You’re supposed to be our allies!_

Julius Fitzgibbon Shinra turned out to be surprising in a number of ways. He was young, for one thing, just three years older than Veld, and he had a charm about him that was entirely separate from his rather bland blond good looks or his wealth. The money made its presence felt, of course, in the cut of his suit, the leather of his shoes, and the aroma of his fine cigars. But the charm was in his manner.

“Pieter Veld,” he said when they were introduced, seizing Veld’s hand and shaking it vigorously, “I know that name. You’re the officer who showed Faremis round the hospital at Dalemotte. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He sounded as if he meant it.

When Veld spoke to Shinra, Shinra listened, and when he listened, he made Veld feel as if they were the only two people in the room; the only two people who really _understood_ the insanity all around them. Julius Shinra was angry too. His company’s sophisticated weaponry had been designed to intimidate: to end wars, not to prolong them. But the enemy – _those chook-fuckers_ , he called them – had set up their own arms factory, and were making copies of any Shinra weapons they’d managed to capture. Bad copies, to be sure, but getting better. “They’re stealing our industrial secrets,” he said, “And that’s bad enough, but they’re prolonging this godforsaken war, and that’s worse.”

“Good business for you, though,” said Veld, who was doing his best to resist Shinra’s charm offensive. He didn’t trust charm.

“Peace would be better. There are other uses for mako besides weapons. Better uses. More profitable uses. In ten years time, weapons will be a mere fraction of Shinra’s output. But for the kind of growth I envision, we need peace. This was supposed to be a short war.”

Veld didn’t want to believe him, but he couldn’t help himself. “I didn’t think the Iskuzai had the technology for weapons development. Or the resources.”

“They don’t,” said Julius. “Wutai is funding them, under the table.”

“You know that for a fact?” Technically, Wutai was neutral.

“An educated guess. Ever since we moved into Forland and Smolland Wutai’s been acting like it’s got a flea in its girdle. They’d love to bog us down in the mud here for a generation. If we’re going to end this war we need to find where those chook-fuckers have hidden their factories, and destroy them.”

“Let me do it.” The words were out of Veld’s mouth before his mind knew its own intention.

Julius Shinra smiled round his cigar. “What do you propose?”

Veld had no idea - yet. He only knew that he could do it – knew it with the same absolutely certainty he felt when he fitted the cogs of a timepiece together and made them run, as the saying went, like clockwork. He could do it because he wanted it so badly. He would keep trying until he succeeded. He’d kept his feet dry long enough.

“I speak the language,” he said. “Write to my Colonel, ask him to release me. Give me a month. I’ll find those factories, or die trying.”

.

Veld had no training in espionage. He taught himself as he went along, picking up the little pieces, putting the puzzle together. _They don’t call it intelligence for nothing._ In the end it took him longer than he’d asked for: six weeks of painstaking detective work. He was both thorough and thoroughly cautious. Veld was willing to die trying, but he wasn’t willing to die looking like a fool. More: he wanted Julius Shinra to see that he was a man who could deliver on his promises.

Watching from a distant hill as the Shinra bombs fell on the enemy factories, he felt an inner glow not entirely dissimilar from the red glow that lit up the horizon. A sense of closure, of fulfilment. Fuck clocks. This was the work he was born for. His true calling.

.

Three weeks later, on Armistice Day, Veld was at home when he received a telegram:

Veld grabbed his hat, ran through the streets packed with armistice revellers,and jumped on the next train to the Osgarth, adrenaline pumping through his veins.

Osgarth was the collective name for the eight towns nestling close together in the plain south of Kalm, between the Skathi mountains and the Healen Downs. About a year before the outbreak of the war, the Mayor of the Osgarth had invited Shinra to set up its headquarters in one of his towns. Any one would do; they were all rich in mako. Prior to this move, Shinra Inc. had been based in Junon. The Shinra family was Lucanian, though Julius’s mother had come from the western continent, old Nibel aristocracy. There was mako in her blood too, metaphorically speaking. The mako in Junon was abundant but lay under the ocean and was costly to access. Therefore, after due consideration, President Shinra, Julius’s father, had accepted the Mayor’s offer - but instead of choosing one of the Osgarth towns for his company’s headquarters, he had planted his new office tower slap bang in the centre of all eight. At first people had called it Shinra Town, but now they were calling it Middle Garth, or _Midgar_ – and not just the Shinra building, but the whole region.

Looking out the train window, Veld could see the reactors in different stages of construction, the cranes, the smoke, the dust. The northernmost reactor was due to go online by the end of next month. It wouldn’t be long, he thought, before the name Osgarth fell out of use and was forgotten, replaced entirely by Midgar. His old father complained that the world was changing too fast, but Veld found the pace exhilarating. How did that poem go?

_Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, b_ _ut to be young was very heaven! –_

“Shall I tell you my dream, Piet?” said Julius, once the sherry had been poured and the cigars lit. “First, we have ask ourselves: what causes war? And the answer is, history. Think about it. Grudge breeds grudge. Honour demands revenge. Wrongs must be righted. People refuse to let their grievances go and move on. But what if we could wipe the slate clean and start from scratch, with all the technology we have at our disposal? What if we could give people light, and warmth, and comfortable, easy lives, without having to fight for it? Wouldn’t that be something?

“Shinra has a problem,” said Julius, “And when Shinra has a problem, the world has a problem. But every problem is an opportunity in disguise, that’s what I always say. Faremis told you, didn’t he, that we’re looking into a method of controlled mako poisoning. Mako enhancement, we’re calling it. Get the dose right, and you can double or triple a man’s strength without any of the negative side effects. Can you imagine it? Soldiers with a capital S. An army of super-soldiers enforcing Shinra’s peace all over the world. That’s my dream, Piet. We’re not there yet. My father won’t give me the capital I need to move the project forward; he thinks it’s pie in the sky. But he won’t live forever. And I know I’m right. Do you want to know how I know? I’ll tell you.

“We thought we were the only ones who knew about mako’s potential for human enhancement, but we were wrong. The chook-fuckers had the same idea, which I suppose was inevitable once they got their hands on our weapons. And their research was further along than ours is. How do we know this? Because we captured some of their mako-soldiers. Those bastards are practically unkillable. Their strength, their ability to health themselves – it’s unreal, Piet. It’s everything I dreamed. The only downside is they’re addicted to mako. That’s how we got them to talk. Apparently they brought in some flea to run the program. He built the whole shebang from nothing, practically single-handed. Faremis’s says he’s got to be a genius.”

“I want this Wute, Piet. I want him working for me. Find him. Do whatever it takes. Money’s no object. Move heaven and earth if you have to.”

“I’ll find him. Do you have a name?”

“Yes,” said Julius, “He’s called Hojo.”

.

Finding the Wute genius proved easier than finding the weapon factories – so easy, Veld surprised even himself. All he had to do was extract the location of Hojo’s last known whereabouts from one of the mako-addicted captives, travel east to the town in question, and visit every bar in turn. He was only looking for information, but in the third bar he entered, he found his man.

“Right there,” said the barman, pointing into a corner.

Hojo did not try to flee or to hide his identity. If anything, he seemed eager to make himself known.

Prior to this meeting, Veld had formed a mental image of Hojo as someone middle-aged, if not elderly: the kind of scrawny, buck-toothed, cunning, devious, myopic Wute familiar to him from Saturday matinees at Kalm’s only cinema. Hojo in the flesh confounded such stereotypes - with the exception of the myopia: one of his spectacle lenses was cracked, and the black frame had been mended with tape. He was neither short nor scrawny. His long black hair was thick and lustrous. His facial features were, to Veld’s eye, delicate almost to the point of femininity. He looked extremely young – although, Veld reminded himself, it was always hard to tell with Wutaians just how old they actually were.

Yet there was something strange about him, something off-kilter that Veld couldn’t quite put his finger on. Less than a month ago this man had been building human weapons for Shinra’s enemy. He ought to have been at least a little afraid.

Well, no doubt he knew his own value.

“How old _are_ you?” Veld asked him. Not that it made any difference, but he was curious.

Hojo took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “I hope you’re not one of those people who gets hung up on trivial details. Will I have my own lab? My _personal_ lab? That’s essential.”

“You can ask.”

“I must have a lab of my own. I must have absolute authority. I will hand-pick my own team without interference. On this point I cannot negotiate.”

He hadn’t once asked about a salary.

“You’ll have to discuss those details with the Vice-President,” said Veld. “I’m here to escort you to Midgar. Why don’t you go pack, and meet me at the station at eight? I’ll buy the tickets.”

“There’s nothing to pack.”

“But you must have – files, and things?”

“It’s all up here.” Hojo tapped his broad forehead. “Shall we go? No time to waste.”

.

_Things Veld learnt from the war:_

  1. What shame feels like. He is ashamed of himself for taking the A.D.C. job, for abandoning his men on the front lines. Yet he cannot regret it. He is glad to be alive.
  2. He can kill if he has to, without losing sleep over it. What haunts him, what keeps him awake at night, are the deaths of his own men. The deaths he should have prevented.
  3. If you want peace, you have to make it yourself. You build it brick by brick, like a tower, and you station your snipers on all four corners, because the enemies of peace are everywhere. Once you’ve made your peace, you have to defend it ruthlessly. For that, a strong central authority is essential. In the olden days, the days of faith and magic, that authority might have been a religious leader, or a queen, but in these modern days of steel and mako, what’s needed is a charismatic entrepreneur.
  4. Death doesn’t distinguish between the innocent and the guilty. The memory of battered military trucks, stacked with muddy corpses like so many logs, was never far from his mind. For the many to live, sometimes it’s necessary that a few must die. A man who’s not prepared to make these hard choices cannot claim to be a peacemaker.



.

His next piece of work for Vice-President Julius was not so much a commission as a bit of private enterprise. Through one of the contacts he’d made while searching for the weapons factories, he heard rumours that a company called M.O.G. - Mideelian Oil&Gas - was developing a new mako-processing system that yielded an energy output almost half as much again as what Shinra was getting from its Midgar reactors. Veld doubted whether these rumours could be true, so, rather than run straight to Julius, he thought it best to check them out first. Disguised as an investor, with homburg hat and a chocobo leather briefcase, he travelled down to Mideel, set up a meeting with the M.O.G. directors, read their reports, and saw enough to alarm him. The last thing the world needed right now was a struggle for supremacy between two rival power companies.

It seemed to him that the simplest solution would be to take M.O.G.’s process and give it to Shinra, so that was what he did. He offered jobs with Shinra to the technicians who had developed the process, and when they hesitated, the chief technician was found the next morning drowned in a rain-barrel outside his own back door. This tragic accident persuaded the surviving technicians that working for Shinra would be in everybody’s best interests. As for the M.O.G. directors, Veld advised them to stick to what they knew best. Shinra would tolerate no challenges to its monopoly on mako. Problem solved.

“You’re a magician!” Julius exclaimed when he heard the story. “And these Mideelian cigars are exquisite. Hand-rolled on a dusky maiden’s thigh. That aroma! Woodsmoke and spice with just the faintest hint of pussy. Here, have one, I insist. You’ve earned it.”

.

For the next eighteen months or so, Veld continued to do jobs for Vice-President Julius Shinra in an ad hoc, private capacity. Then Julius’s father, who had been ailing for some time with a bad heart, died, and everything changed.

“My old man liked to take things slow,” Julius announced to the assembled company. “But what I say is, nobody’s got time for that! Starting today, this minute, things are going to be different around here. We’re going to make money like there’s no tomorrow. With money, anything is possible! We can reach for the moon! No, forget the moon – we’ll touch the stars! From this day forward, the world will never be the same, and it’ll all be thanks to you, my friends – you, and your hard work, and our glorious mako!”

The first of the old guard to go was Bugenhagen, the Director of the Science Department, who handed in his resignation – jumping before he was pushed – and retired to Cosmo Canyon to play with his wind generators. Faremis Gast was promoted to take his place. The Science Department was split into four divisions: mako prospecting, materia science, electro-magnetics, and biochemical engineering. Weapons Development was split away from Peacekeeping to form its own department.

 Four reactors were now operational. The plant life around Midgar was struggling; you couldn’t help but notice it. The patchy grass, the withered flowers. Trees that had shed their leaves, snapped their dry roots, toppled over. Monster sightings were up. What with the dying plants and the monster infestations, people were worried the reactors might be shut down. Shinra might decide to relocate somewhere more hospitable. They might lose their jobs.       Then the Science department released its long-awaited report, which confirmed that there was no demonstrable connection between mako extraction, soil fertility, and monsters. President Julius Shinra promise that his company wasn’t going anywhere, and the public mood calmed down a little. However, for the safety and comfort of the population he had decided it would be best to lift the entire city right up off the dying ground. Fifty metres ought to do the trick. As he described it, the Midgar of his dreams would appear from a distance to float in the air. It would be a miracle of modern engineering, a wonder of the world, a blueprint for cities of the future...

 “And you,” he said to Veld, “My old comrade in arms, my new director of corporate security – you’d better gird your loins, because from here on the workload’s only going to get heavier. It’s time you had a department of your own. Get a team together and draw up a budget – and don’t under-estimate; this isn’t the time to be scrimping gil. We’ll call it – let’s see, something vague and non-descript. Nobody should know exactly what it is you do, and everybody should be just a little afraid of you. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as nanny used to say. Hmm. Department of Precautionary Investigations? Department of Cooperative Enforcement?”

“Department of Administrative Research,” said Veld.

President Shinra beamed with pleasure. “Piet, you’re a genius.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I hear Veld speaking in my head, he's a white South African, an Afrikaaner. Occasionally (and especially when he's drunk) he uses Afrikaans slang. "Fundi" is actually a Swahili word, and means boffin, expert. 
> 
> The Izkuzai or Askuzai are the nation Shinra and its allies are at war with during The Great Grasslands War. They were originally nomads, and their traditional way of life was heavily dependent on chocobos, hence Julius Shinra's slur "chook-fuckers". As for who was the aggressor in this war, I will leave it to the reader to decide.  
> .
> 
> This fic began life as a response to the following prompt for EchoThruTheWoods:
> 
> "Vincent's first day, or first assignment, as a Turk. Partnered with Veld. Show me Vincent as a young Turk: Is he confident? Over-confident? Cautious? Reckless? Is he emotionally ready to be a Turk? What does Veld think of his new partner, does he like him? Hate him? Feel attracted to him? Does he think Vincent's not ready to be a Turk? Comedy, drama or something in between, no preference."
> 
> Somehow the little story I first envisioned just grew and grew and grew until it became this unwieldy monster that didn't really know where it was going. Vincent is the other main character, I promise - he makes his appearance in the next chapter.


	2. Vincent

 

_Six years later. Monday morning:_

Veld was in a good mood as he walked to work that morning. He had spent a pleasant weekend in Kalm, making slow but steady progress with the young woman whom he had been courting for almost six months now. He ran up the front steps three at a time, something he hadn’t done in years, hummed his way along the corridor, opened the door to the D.A.R. department – and stopped dead in his tracks. The duty Turk was not at the duty desk. Their place had been taken by something out of a science-fiction novel, a thing that could only be described as the hybrid love-child of a typewriter and a television. It whirred and chugged and blinked at him.

“Sharon!” he roared, “What the hell is this monstrosity?”

Sharon, his PA-stroke-deputy-stroke-Jill of all trades, wheeled out of her cubicle. “Surprise!” she grinned. “It’s a computer.”

“I know what it _is_.” Veld didn’t like surprises. “Who ordered it?”

“It’s a gift. From the President. There’s one for you too.”

“And what am I supposed to do with it?”

“Process data.”

Veld snorted contemptuously. “I can do that in my head. Look, just – move it, will you, somewhere inconspicuous. The thing’s an eyesore.”

“Of course, Chief, but – if you don’t want yours, could I have it? The guys from Tech who were here setting it up said the whole company will be computerised by the end of the year. They’re going to make a network linking all the computers together through the telephone system so we can move data from one department to another without printing it out on paper. Think of all the trees we’ll save!”

Veld closed his eyes, foreseeing the security nightmare that would result from making each department’s files accessible to every other department. The President must have his way, of course, but if this was the shape of things to come, the DAR would need to recruit some tech specialists of its own, stat.

“I could pay two Turks’ salaries for a yea _r_ for what one of these things costs,” he grumbled.

“Speaking of which – “ Sharon glanced down at her lap, and for the first time Veld noticed she was carrying a bundle of files. Seeing the question in his eye, she shrugged ruefully. “They’re applications. Ten of them.“

“Sharon -“

“I know, I know. But the top one’s green-flagged.”

“Why?”

“The President’s taking a personal interest.”

“I know what a green flag means,” Veld growled, not so much at Sharon – she was the best assistant he’d ever had, and he’d been through quite a few – as at the situation. “ _Why_ is he taking an interest?”

“You’ll have to ask him that.”

“Damn it.” He stretched out a hand. “Give it here. Burn the rest.”

“Don’t you even want to look at them? What if you miss out on a corker?”

“Unlikely.” In Veld’s experience, the D.A.R. attracted only two kinds of applicants, psychopaths and fantasists. Neither made good Turks. Veld preferred relying on his own nose to sniff out candidates. So far, it had never let him down.

.

_Memo to Self_

_A good Turk is:_

  * _A team player who is comfortable working solo_
  * _Someone who can think outside the box and obey orders unquestioningly_
  * _Psychologically stable, with a low empathy rating_
  * _Physically fit_
  * _Able to withstand long periods of boredom_
  * _Handy with a weapon_



_._ As far as Veld could see, the candidate green-flagged for his special consideration possessed only one of those attributes – two, if Veld counted the stats from his admissions physical at the Junon Military College, but those numbers were four years old, and it didn’t look as if he’d done much since then but drift.

So why the green flag? His name, probably; Veld could find nothing else in his application to account for it. No doubt the meddling hand of Faremis Gast was at work here. Grimoire Valentine, R.I.P., the world’s leading expert on summons until his untimely death in an accident with some volatile rare material, had been a close friend of Gast’s. And now Valentine’s son wanted to join the Turks, despite his almost total lack of qualifications.

“Hold my calls,” Veld called to Sharon on his way out. “I’m going over to Science. I may be some time.”

.

Gast’s office was much larger than Veld’s office, and had a much better view. The two men sat facing each other across Gast’s beautiful antique desk, with Vincent Valentine’s resume and references – such as they were – spread out between them.

“I know you think you’re doing him a favour,” said Veld. “But look at his track record. Enrolled in the military academy, dropped out after one year. Apprenticed with a private investigator, quit after six months. Spent nine months doing nothing. Got taken on by the Junon Times as a cub reporter, quit after three months. If I hired him, how long would it be before he quit on me? Six weeks?”

“He’s young. He doesn’t know what he wants.”

“When I was his age I was a captain in the Kalm Gunners. We were fighting a _war_ , for fuck’s sake. I couldn’t _quit_ when I got bored.”

“You’re what, six years older than Vincent? Seven? Not a large difference. You could be an older brother to him. I think he’d look up to you. He needs guidance.”

“I don’t give a shit what he needs. I need Turks who can show some commitment _._ I’m not a fucking guidance counsellor.”

“Please don’t swear at me. Vincent will commit when he finds his calling. He’s what we scientists call – ahem - a late bloomer.”

Gast’s awkward attempt at humour fell on stony ears. “I resent having my hand forced, Faremis. Do I try to tell you who to hire?”

“No. But you have sometimes told me who to fire.”

The point was unanswerable. Silenced, Veld sat still for a moment, mastering his temper. “Look,” he said at last, “I understand you want to help him. But not at my department’s expense. Why can’t you put him somewhere less – somewhere he won’t hurt himself? Fleet management, or marketing?”

“He’s not cut out for a desk job.”

“He’s not cut out to be a Turk!”     

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Gast dreamily. “He’s a marvellous shot and really rather clever. He’s a nice boy. You’ll like him.”

“ _Bliksem!_ ” Veld ground the word between his teeth. “I’ve no fucking use for _nice_ boys.”

But Gast would not be dissuaded. He’d made up his mind; Veld could see that. This discussion was a waste of time. The Science Department’s pull with the President was greater than the D.A.R.’s pull; Gast knew this, and Veld knew it too – and therefore, whether he wanted to or not, he was going to have to take this Vincent Valentine, unpromising as he was, and try to make a Turk of him, or else – which was more probable – watch him die in the attempt.

“You’ll whip him into shape,” said Gast, smiling benevolently through his moustache. “I have every faith in you, Piet. I think you’re just what Vincent needs.”

.

_Wednesday morning_

The intercom buzzed. “Mr Valentine is here, Chief.”

“Show him in.”

Over the course of a restless night it had occurred to Veld that this whole thing might be Gast’s initiative. Vincent himself might have no more desire to be a Turk than he’d had to be a soldier, or a detective, or a journalist. Perhaps he was only applying for the job under pressure from his late father’s friend. Veld hoped this would turn out to be the case.

Vincent’s application had given his age as twenty-two, but the youth who came through looked no older than eighteen. He was slim and very tall, at least four inches taller than Veld, and he had all the gangliness of a boy in the throes of a sudden growth spurt. His cheeks were very smooth. _Late bloomer_ , indeed! Veld wondered if he needed to shave yet. He certainly needed a hair-cut.

Vincent took a seat in the chair Veld indicated, crossing one long leg over the other, his hands resting in his lap. He didn’t seem nervous. Veld wasn’t sure yet whether to count that as a point in his favour.

He went through the usual list of entry interview questions: _You understand what this department does? The kind of work you’ll be doing?_ _Why do you want to join the Turks? What makes you think you’ll be a good Turk?_ Vincent’s answers were adequate. He understood his job would be to protect company secrets. He wanted to join the Turks because he was looking for meaningful work. He wanted something to believe in, something bigger than himself. He didn’t know if he’d be a good Turk, but he was determined to try.

“Where do you see yourself in ten years time?”

Vincent shrugged and smiled. The smile was unmistakeably genuine, and took a lot of the sullenness out of the shrug. “I’ve never really looked that far ahead,” he admitted.

“That doesn’t surprise me. Your employment record does nothing to recommend you.”

“I am fully cognizant of that,” Vincent replied, unperturbed. “But what I would ask you to remember is that in every case, the choice to leave was mine. I have never been dismissed from a job. My employers were both satisfied with my performance. I left those jobs because they failed to satisfy _me_. It wouldn’t have been fair to my employer to stay once I knew my heart wasn’t in it – or to the man he could employ in my place.”

Unusual attitude. Well, Gast had said he was a nice boy.            

“How do I know you won’t quit on me?”

Vincent gave another rueful shrug. “Neither one of us can offer the other a guarantee. All you can offer me is a trial, and all I can offer you is the promise to do my best. And you can rest assured of one thing: if I’m not fit for this position, you won’t need to tell me. When something is not working out, I always know.”

.

            Vincent’s IQ test came back adequate. His psychological profile was adequate. His physical fitness was good. His marksmanship was prodigious. Eighty-seven per cent accuracy. Veld had never seen such steady hands. Vincent could have been a surgeon….

But he wanted to be a Turk, and Veld could find no reason to turn him down. Then again, Veld didn’t normally need to give a reason.

At the end of the day they were once again sitting face to face in Veld’s office. Veld went over Vincent’s assessment results. Then he said, “One final question. Tell me about Maurice Henson.”

Vincent’s shoulders tensed.

“You must have known I’d ask,” said Veld.

“Maurice is dead.”

“I know he’s dead. I want to know how he died.”

“Didn’t you read my file?”

“I want you to tell me.”

Vincent took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Maurice was a friend of mine. We’ve known each other since we were five years old. The summer before last, we went to Gongaga District to do some rock climbing. We were hoping to scale the Red Cliffs, perhaps even reach the Ancient Forest. One morning he went out before dawn to take photographs of the sunrise, and he didn’t come back. I went to look for him. I heard screaming…” Vincent tailed away.

“Go on,” said Veld.

“This is difficult.”

“I know. Go on.”

“He must have wandered into a nest of kimara bugs. I counted seven of them. He was webbed. Stopped. They were –“ Vincent’s voice cracked. “I’m sorry. I can’t say it. He was still alive, still – struggling. I tried to drive them off but my shots only enraged them. Several of them came at me. I was afraid they would stop me too. I had to get away, but I couldn’t leave him.”

“You shot him.”

Vincent bowed his head. “And then I ran.”

“I don’t bloody blame you.”

“For a long time I was unable to talk about it. It’s why I left the newspaper. I couldn’t concentrate on my work. Something like that – you can never unsee it. Maurice was always in my mind’s eye. Uncle Faremis arranged for me to have some therapy. Presumably that’s in your file as well?”

“I need to know these things, Vince.”

“Yes. Well. The therapy was helpful. I’ve shed the guilt, but the shame, I think, will be with me always. ”

“You did your friend a kindness. You acted decisively under pressure. Those aren’t things to be ashamed of.”

“What I regret most now is not… I could not save him, I know that, but I wish I hadn’t told his family. I could have spared them so much suffering if I had only told them he’d fallen from the cliff, or – or drowned while we were swimming. Any other death would have been easier to imagine than the true picture of his last moments. His sister – she cannot even bear to look at me now.”

The wistfulness in his voice gave him away. “She meant something to you, huh?”

“The past is another country. I have renounced romantic entanglements.”

_Right_ , thought Veld. _I’m sure you think you mean that._

Aloud he said, “Thou shalt not kill.”

Vincent lifted his head, confusion in his eyes.

“There’s two types of people in the world, Vince: the ones who can cross that line and the ones who can’t. I learnt that during the war. There were men in the trenches with me who never once fired their rifle at the enemy, even when their lives depended on it. They just couldn’t bring themselves to do it. Nobody knows which kind of man they are until they’ve been put in that situation. And once you’ve crossed that line, you can’t go back. You know what you’re capable of.”

Veld leaned back in his chair and drummed his blunt fingers on the desktop. A mercy-killing wasn’t exactly what he was talking about; it blurred, rather than clarified, that moral line to which he was referring, the first hurdle which every Turk must leap - but at least Vincent hadn’t stood uselessly by, too lily-livered to pull the trigger, while a pack of killer insects sucked his friend dry. He had more potential than Veld had at first given him credit for.

“Listen,” he said, “From where I’m sitting – and my opinion is the only one that will matter to you from now on - you made the right decision. When you’re a Turk, you should have your partner’s back at all time, but your first duty is always to bring _yourself_ back alive. Noble gestures get men killed. And another thing. Why the bloody hell did you go camping in Gongaga without sprint shoes?”

“We didn’t think – “

“No one ever thinks it will happen to them until it does. In this department, we prepare for every eventuality. We don’t go into the field without the proper equipment. Ever. Is that understood?”

Vincent nodded.

“You say ‘Yes, sir’. You’re a Turk now.” Veld leaned forward to press the intercom. “Sharon, bring the contracts through – and tell Lyn to come up here.“ He took his finger off the button, sat back, and said, “Any last questions before you sign your life away?”

“I do have one – sir.”

“Well?”

“Why is this department called the Turks? It must be an acronym, but I can’t figure it out.”

Veld laughed. “Nothing so clever. When I started this department Shinra was growing so fast they’d run out of office space, so I spent the first three months working from an upstairs room in the pub next door. It was called _The Turk’s Head._ When someone was looking for me they’d be told to ‘go to the Turk’s.’ We’ve been the Turks ever since.”

“Oh.” Vincent looked disappointed. “But what’s a Turk?”

“Old Kalm slang for a pirate.”

The door opened and Sharon wheeled in carrying two copies of Vincent’s employment contract. “Read it carefully,” Veld insisted. “Always know what it is you’re signing. I’ll wait.” When Vincent had finished reading, Veld lent him a fountain pen, and they both signed. “It’ll have to go up to the President for final approval,” said Veld, “But in your case that’s just a formality. Now go out and wait for Lyn. She’ll take you down to have your suit fitted.”

Veld watched Sharon’s eyes follow Vincent – specifically, Vincent’s backside – across the room and out the door. She was grinning from ear to ear. “Keep your mind on your work, woman,” he growled.

“If you’re going to hire such dishy recruits, you have only yourself to blame if we get distracted.”

“Well, don’t get too attached. I haven’t decided yet if he’s a keeper.”

.

_The following Monday:_

The weekly meeting was due to start in half an hour. Vincent was sitting in Veld’s office in his brand new suit and tie, hands clasped between his knees, dark fringe falling into his eyes. He didn’t look nervous so much as eagerly impatient. This would be his first mission briefing, and before it started Veld needed to bring him up to speed on a few things.

“Our work broadly falls into four categories,” Veld explained. “Protecting company secrets from falling into the wrong hands is probably the bulk of our work. The kind of stuff I’m talking about would be blueprints for mako reactors, mako engines, designs for weapons, the materia condensing process, and anything that’s going on in the Science department.   A lot of our time is spent finding and plugging information leak.

“Secondly, protecting the company from any kind of external threat to its position. A threat might be technological, or it might be more ideological. Third, we support the implementation of the company’s public policies in whatever ways the Board deems necessary.”

“Public policies?” said Vincent.

“From the _fundis_ in Social Orthotics. Right now we’re having a big push on the church.”

“Why would Shinra interest itself in the church?”

Veld sat back in his chair. “Are you religious, Vincent?”

A grimace of offended disgust crossed Vincent’s face. “In my opinion, all religion is superstitious nonsense that addles men’s faculty of reason.”

Veld remembered then that Vincent’s scientist father, Gast’s great friend, had lost his life chasing some mythical rainbow or other he’d read about in an old sacred text. “Well, then,” he said, “You get it. We here at Shinra – we aspire to be something more than just another power company. We’re trying to build a new kind of world, a world free from all the bullshit that causes wars. And what’s caused more wars than anything else?”

“You want to stamp out religion?”

“No. You can’t stamp out faith. If you try, you only drive it underground, and now it’s twice as dangerous because it has a grudge against you. The last thing this world needs is more martyrs. No - Shinra deals in power, and faith is a powerful force. We want to bring it on board. Yoke it to our wagon, so to speak.”

“Have the pulpits preach the gospel of Shinra.”

Veld didn’t entirely like Vincent’s tone. It bore a hint of something – sarcasm? poetry? – that grated on his sense of forboding. Nevertheless, he let it pass. This was only Vincent’s first day. He would learn.

“Lastly, it’s our job to maintain a network of See-Eyes. C for Confidential, I for Informants. We find them, or we make them; we cultivate them, and most importantly, we protect them. People have to feel they’ll be safe with Shinra. Of course, very occasionally it becomes necessary to remove one, but that’s always our action of last resort.”

A knock on the door. “Chief,” called Sharon, “Everyone’s waiting.”

Veld pushed back his chair and stood up. “Once you’ve passed your probationary period, you’ll be given a string of your own See-Eyes to handle. Just so you know, for today, since it’s your first mission, I’ll be partnering you with Tank.”

“I think I met him. The one with the moustache and the crew cut?”

“He was the first Turk I hired after I founded this department. Follow his lead and you won’t go wrong.”

.

_Mission_

Tank was built like one, but that wasn’t how he’d got his nick-name. Rolling his suit-sleeves up his brawny forearms, he uncovered two blue tattoos: on the right a buxom Betty in a one-piece bathing suit, on the left an early model Shinra Goliath Tank. But that, he explained to Vincent, wasn’t how he’d got his nickname either.

“I drove it. That there – “ he jabbed at the tank tattoo with his free hand, grinning proudly. “I was the prototype pilot.”

He took the cigarette from his mouth to hawk up a gob of phlegm and spit it through the open driver’s window of the truck. The two of them were driving from Costa del Sol to Corel. The sun was strong, the road dusty. Tank had been working for Shinra’s weapons division since the War of the Three Queens, the war before the Great Grasslands War that had brought Shinra to Midgar. Why had he become a Turk? “The money was right. And I like the freedom. As long as we bring home the bacon, the Captain’s not too particular about how we kill the pig.”

Tank had a degree in mechanical engineering from Bovadem University. Vincent couldn’t hide his surprise when he heard this, which made Tank burst out laughing. “You gotta work on that poker face, sonny. And use your noggin. D’you think the Chief hires idiots? He may be young, but he knows what he’s doing.”

Bovadem University had closed its doors years ago. Shinra had moved its professors to the new centres of power in Junon and Midgar, turned its ancient buildings into a hospital and a school. When Vincent asked Tank how he felt about this, he shrugged.

“Getting sentimental about the past, that’s when you know you’re getting old. The old days weren’t all bad, but on the whole it was pretty shite.”

And what were these two Turks, the veteran and the rookie, doing here way out west in the Corel Mountains, deep in the heart of coal country, far from Shinra’s sphere of interest? They were hunting contraband mythril traders, black marketeers.

Vincent’s father had once told him that for every force of nature, an opposite force existed to balance it out: thus the equilibrium of the cosmos was maintained. Mythril was the force that balanced magic – or rather, what used to be called magic, but was now called materia. The new Shinra tower at the hub of the floating wheel of Midgar was being clad in sheets of mythril. Threads of mythril were woven into the fabric of the Turks’ suit. No other substance, whether man-made or naturally occurring, could provide the same level of protection. Which was good when you wanted to shield yourself from the effects of materia, but less good when your vast arsenal of weapons relied heavily upon materia for their effectiveness. Any enemy equipped with mythril would have a strong defense against Shinra’s firepower. For its own security, therefore, the company was taking urgent steps to secure a monopoly on mythril.

The mines south of the Zolom swamp had come under Shinra’s control as part of the peace treaty that ended the Great Grasslands War. Most of the world’s other mythril deposits lay in territory already dominated by Shinra: the Modeo Mountains, the Nibel Mountains, the Condor Hills. Those mines had been closed for years. The Wutai mythril mines behind Da Chao were a thorn in Shinra’s side that would be dealt with in due course. Once the company’s scientists had perfected a method for creating synthetic mythril, the Zolom mines would also be shut down.

The company appreciated that a complete ban on the sale of mythril to the public was neither practicable nor possible. All sorts of people relied on mythril to do their job: not only bounty hunters, but security officers, long-distance lorry drivers, farmers, and even sanitation engineers – anyone whose work might bring them into contact with monsters. Instead, Shinra had established a registry system. Anyone shopkeeper who wanted to deal in mythril products had to put their details on the register, and keep a log itemising what they had sold, and to whom, and when.

It was not the Turks’ job to manage the mythril registry. The Weapons department had an entire sub-division devoted to that purpose. Nor was it their job to punish shop-keepers caught selling mythril under the counter. Public Safety Maintenance took care of that.

Tank and Vincent had been charge with breaking up the contraband supply line, tracing it back to its source, shutting that source down, and making an example of the king-pin.

Thanks to Tank’s meticulous planning, the mission went off without a hitch. Mr Kingpin himself they captured bare-arsed in the arms of his mistress, who was - not by coincidence - one of Tank’s confidential informants. There was a brief scuffle while Tank got the handcuffs on him. King-pin’s shouted summoned three bodyguards, who burst through the door straight into a volley of Vincent’s bullets.

“Nice shootin’,” said Tank.

Meanwhile, Kingpin’s girlfriend, the snitch, had seized the opportunity to give him a swingeing kick to the testicles. It was as the Chief had said: See-Eyes had their own reasons for passing on information, and it wasn’t always the money.

Tank and Vincent handcuffed the three wounded bodyguards, stripped them of their buffers, and tried to heal them. Two died anyway, but the third, a mountain of a man, clung to life despite the holes Vincent had put in his chest. “Tough guy,” Tank nodded approvingly. “OK, let’s get moving.”

With one of them taking the ankles and the other the shoulders, Tank and Vincent transferred first Man-Mountain, then Kingpin to the back of their truck, which was parked out back. Girlfriend stuffed the gil Tank gave her down her bra and disappeared into the night. Now it was Vincent’s turn to drive while Tank sat guard over their bound, gagged, heavily tranquilised captives.

Before climbing into the back, Tank opened his hand to show Vincent a pair of small pink pills nestling in his palm. “You should take one.”

“What are they?”

“Hyper. It’s a long drive back to Costa. Don’t want you falling asleep at the wheel.”

.

By truck to Costa, by ship to Junon, and by helicopter to Midgar: their journey home was without incident, and when they arrived they found Veld waiting in the courtyard for them. “Good work,” he grunted. “Take these two over to the lock-up and then come to my office for your debriefing.”

“Wotcher, Chief,” Tank saluted.

In those days Midgar was one gigantic building site. Huge channels were being excavated for sewers. Forests of cranes and steel scaffolding towered over the rooftops. Entire neighbourhoods had been bulldozed to clear the way for the construction of the plate supports. The displaced families were moved into flimsy temporary shelters, with the promise of better home on the plate one day. Cement mixers and backhoes ploughed new roads across the yellowing grass. Many old landmarks had been ploughed under. And no matter which way you turned, at every point of the compass the dark shadow of a reactor loomed on the horizon.

The central pillar of the future city-in-the-sky was almost complete, looking like a mushroom stalk that had lost its cap. Tank steered their truck along a gravel path that was destined to become a railway line. Security was tightest around the base of the pillar, and therefore it was here that Shinra’s Science Department was, for the time being, located: twelve green nissen huts, joined by concrete paths, arranged around an ancient stone keep with foot thick walls that in the olden days had been a prison, and was now a prison once more. Tank and Vincent handed Kingpin and Man-Mountain into the custody of the duty-sergeant, signed off on the delivery, and turned around to head back to the office.

As they were driving out the gate, Vincent happened to glance at the wing mirror. In it, he saw a young man in a lab coat walking from one of the Nissen huts in the direction of the prison. He carried a clipboard under his arm, wore glasses, and had long black hair tied back in a messy ponytail.

The words _scientist_ and _Wutaian_ registered in Vincent’s brain, and then his thoughts went off on a tangent: wasn’t it remarkable, in a good way, that Shinra would employ Wutaians even in their most secretive department? Shinra didn’t care where you came from or who your parents were. Shinra only cared whether you had talent. That Wutaian scientist crossing the prison yard was in his very person a symbol of the new world Shinra was trying to build: a world without tribes or borders, a world filled with light.

Then Tank said something that captured his attention, and he forgot about the scientist – forgot so completely that when they bumped into each other again, several years later, Vincent believed he was seeing him for the first time.

.

_Debriefing_

“So, Vince,” said Veld, “Mission accomplished. How do you feel?”

“Would it be wrong to say ‘exhilarated’?”

“Out there – “ Veld gestured vaguely. He could have been referring to the rest of Shinra beyond their department door; he could have meant the whole world - “Maybe. In here, that’s normal. You killed two men who were trying to kill you. It’s natural to feel a sense of triumph.”

“I feel – I think I’m a little – shocked?”

“Because you killed someone?”

“Because it was so easy -” Vincent fell abruptly silent. One moment ago his eyes had been shining with excitement; now he looked stunned, as if putting it into words had made it real.

“You think it shouldn’t be easy,” said Veld, “But it is easy. For men like us, it’s easy. If it were hard there wouldn’t be so many rules against it.”

This was by no means the first time Veld had had to deal with the existential fallout from a successful mission. He’d made his peace with the necessities of his job so long ago that he was beginning to forget how to be patient with the ones who hadn’t yet reached that point. “Look, Vince,” he said, “This was the first time, but it won’t be the last. You’re still on probation. If it bothers you, if you think you can’t handle it, you can resign now and there won’t be any repercussions. You can always transfer to another department – “

“No,” said Vincent emphatically.

“All right, then. You did well on this mission, Vincent.” Better, in fact, than Veld had expected. “You did what you had to do. If you hadn’t, you’d be dead now. We wouldn’t be having this conversation, and I’d be looking for a new recruit. So. Go home. Take it easy. Don’t dwell on it. Be in at eight tomorrow sharp for the mission briefings. I’ll have a new case for you.”

.

The other Turks were, for the most part, rough-and-ready types like Tank. Not all of them had degrees, but all of them were sharp as knives, and most of them were war vets, with the scars to show for it.

Sharon, for example, had been a nurse in a field hospital before she lost her legs in a mortar attack. Her speciality had been Restore materia. Not only was she was a miracle worker when it came to keeping Veld’s calendar organised, but she was the best damn materia handler in the department. From touch alone she could determine an orb’s power class and how it was to being mastered. The Weapons Department was forever maneuvering behind Veld’s back, trying to lure Sharon away with promises of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. She could have made a fortune levelling up their materia for them, but - “They couldn’t pay me enough to do that all day long,” she said. “I’d be bored out of my friggin’ skull.”

Veld had wondered what his Turks would make of Vincent, with his old-fashioned courtesy and his privileged upbringing and his flowery way of speaking. Vincent was a nice boy: he pulled out chairs for his female colleagues at meetings; he held doors open for everyone. He volunteered to make the coffee. His tie was always neatly knotted. He made the Turk suit look like a school uniform. His reports were always beautifully written, without a single error of grammar or misplaced punctuation mark.

_He could have been a journalist…._

The other Turks were not nice boys. They loathed anything that smacked of pretentiousness. Veld expected them to chew Vincent up and spit him out ina million little pieces. But they didn’t. Instead, they made room for him, and they left – Veld didn’t know exactly how to describe it to himself – a space around him, a space that was made manifest at staff meetings, with everyone pulling their chairs just that little bit further away from his. As if they didn’t quite know what to make of him, this nice boy who’d landed in their midst. And he wasn’t even faking the niceness. Veld’s Turks could spot a fake a mile off.

It was about a month after Vincent joined the department, at the end of a briefing meeting in which he had gracefully remonstrated with one Turk for cussing in front of ladies and reduced Lyn – hard as nails Lyn - to wordless blushing with his guileless compliments, that Tank took Veld by the elbow and drew him aside to demand, “Just what the _fuck_ is he doing here, Chief?”

“I thought you liked him.”

“I do like him. Hell, we all like him. You can’t not like him. And I’ve got no complaints about his work. It’s just…...” Tank seemed lost for words.

“I know,” said Veld.

“It’s like - we’re all dogs, and he’s a cat.”

Veld was struck by the aptness of Tank’s analogy. “I know,” he said again.

“Yeah, I know you do. Anyway, you should keep an eye on Tadpole. She’s starting to get bent all out of shape whenever he’s around. You’ve seen what I’m talking about?”

Veld could hardly have failed to see.

At twenty-one years old, Tadpole was his youngest Turk and in some ways, he felt, his most successful, in the sense that she followed his orders without question, untroubled by the prickings of conscience. She was everything Vincent was not: a war orphan, a survivor, hard almost to the point of brittleness; a thief, a scavenger, an inveterate liar, who would cheerfully slit a man’s throat with a broken bottle if he tried to get funny with her. This act of self-defense had landed her in Shinra’s prison – the man, it turned out, was a sergeant with the PSM – and it was there that Veld had found her and rescued her from the clutches of the Science Department. The first thing he did after hiring her was teach her to read. She was a clever girl. On her maiden mission down Gongaga way she’d managed to get herself frogged and the others would never let her forget it. Hence the nickname. She was a kind of little sister – a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, chain-smoking little sister – to the entire team.

“I reckon she’s never met anyone like Vinnie before,” said Tank. “Chief, you’ve got to tell him to stop flirting with her. She’s gonna take it all the wrong way, you know it.”

“I doubt he’s even aware. He’s like that with everyone.”

“Well, make him aware. He’s not thick. Like I said, I like him. He’s a nice guy. But if he messes with our Tadpole, I’m going to cut his dick off. Just saying.”

.

Veld didn’t need Tank to tell him there was a problem. Vincent had only been working with Shinra for a month and already he was acquiring something of a reputation as a ladies’ man, setting hearts aflutter wherever he went. Veld didn’t really understand it – to him, Vincent looked like a gawky, overgrown boy with a bad hair-cut – but he was determined to nip it in the bud.

“I won’t tolerate office romances, Vince. It clouds your judgement. So turn off the charm tap when you’re at work. Hell, keep it off the premises altogether. I don’t like hearing gossip about my Turks. Midgar’s full of pretty girls; find someone who doesn’t work for Shinra.”

Vincent apologised profusely and said he would guard his tongue from now on, but Veld didn’t see any real change. As he’d suspected, Vincent simply wasn’t aware of the effect he produced. Veld spoke to Tadpole, who huffed and blushed and hunched her shoulders and snarled that she wasn’t a frickin’ eejit. Veld hadn’t realised she’d got it quite so bad. Sharon said he should send her out of town for a while, so he shipped her off with Lyn down to Mideel, where the Shinra sappers had found something very strange indeed in the mako caves beneath the village of Banora. The company had been invited to build a reactor there, but now the construction was on hold and Shinra had decided that the reasons should remain a secret.

As for Vincent, he had a new mission: the church in Sector Five.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Veld's slang:  
> bliksem: a curse word, lit. "lightning"  
> fundi: expert


	3. Jenova

Veld didn’t know much about architecture. He couldn’t have told you how old the church was, though he knew that the clock on the south tower had been built five centuries ago. The Age of Faith; the Age of Myth. People in those days had believed in reincarnation, in communing with the ancestors, in the notion of a Lifestream running round the planet like a liquid soul, tugging the tides of humanity first one way and then another. People in those days also believed that the mentally ill were possessed by summons; they’d burned witches at the stake and dumped their shit in the street. History was all about progress.

Church attendance had been dwindling since before the War of the Three Queens. The _fundis_ said Science was the new god, and Veld reckoned it was probably a better one, being as it was under man’s control. Shinra’s Department of Social Orthotics had already taken over many of the services the church had once provided: food banks had replaced alms, counselling had replaced confession, walk-in clinics had replaced infirmaries. The many orphanages and free schools founded by the church were now operated by Shinra’s Department of Public Information. About the only function left for the church was to pacify its faithful by preaching the glory of the gospel of Shinra –

Those were Vincent’s words. Dammit, how’d they get stuck in his head?

He slid silently through the doors and stood unnoticed in the shadows at the back of the church. This was a gift he had, to be invisible when he chose. He’d taught his Turks to do the same. All except Vincent. Vincent, it was becoming clear, had no talent for blending into the background. The other worshippers at this service were giving him a wide berth: he sat alone in his pew the way he sat alone at the mission briefings: not shunned, but ring-fenced with uncertainty. These people could sense, just as the Turks did, that he didn’t belong among them.

Of course he didn’t. There were twenty-two people in this congregation, including the minister, and all but three of them – a young woman and her two children –were over fifty. Veld pulled a hand down his face, cursing his own stupidity. What a _loskop_ he was! He’d chosen Vincent for this mission thinking his olde-worlde charm and grave good manners would ingratiate him with the minister. He’d forgotten that young men just didn’t go to church any more. No wonder they were wary of him.

The climax of the ceremony was approaching. The congregation, Vincent included, went down on their knees, murmuring prayers. The minister lifted a two-handled urn and poured a stream of viscous green fluid into the antique, gold-rimmed glass seeing bowl that stood upon the altar. The bitter aroma of mako filled the church. To Veld it smelled like rank superstition.

They weren’t supposed to use mako any more. Mako was a restricted substance, especially in Midgar. It was also hazardous to health. Five years ago the order had gone out that all churches were henceforth to use coloured water. This church was breaking at least half a dozen public safety and social orthotics edicts. Their reckless selfishness took Veld’s breath away.

For almost a minute the minister stood gazing silently into the bowl, fingers laced beneath her chin. Then she raised her eyes to the congregation and began the invocation to the ancestors.

_These people are old,_ Veld reminded himself. _They’ll die and take the past with them. A generation from now this will all be forgotten, as if it had never been._

When the service was over, the minister stood at the entrance to shake each worshipper’s hand as they departed. Veld retreated further into the shadows. From here he watched as the young woman, her two blond toddlers in tow, corralled Vincent into a conversation. They were the last to leave the building. The minister joined them, and all five began walking together towards the marketplace, with the minister doing most of the talking. Veld followed at a discrete distance.

It was a hot, humid day, the sun beating down on their heads. Veld’s shirt was sticking to his back. When they came to the crossroads, the minister blessed Vincent, the woman, and the two children, and then left them, walking off in the direction of Sector Six. The woman and her kids showed no signs of going anywhere. She and Vincent were talking now about getting some ice cream. Veld was out of patience: he stepped from the shadows, took Vincent’s elbow, brushed the woman off with a curt “Excuse me”, and steered Vincent down a road that led, eventually, to headquarters.

“You better not be fucking her,” he growled as soon as she was out of earshot.

Vincent recoiled. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me.”

“What do you take me for? Do you think I am the sort of man who would take advantage of a widow’s loneliness?”

Veld had never seen Vincent get angry before; somehow, he’d assumed Vincent’s good manners wouldn’t allow it. And yet the question had been a fair one. The woman was young and pretty and clearly up for it. Most men would have found the invitation in her eyes hard to resist. And Vincent, despite his airs and pretensions, was hardly a saint.

Veld let go of Vincent’s arm, ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “You’re a bloody mystery to me sometimes, Vince.”

“I told you when you hired me that I had renounced romantic entanglements. I am a man of my word, Commander. I trust you know that much of me, at least.”

“There’s romance, and then there’s recreational fucking. You can have one without the other.”

“Yet the marriage of carnal to spiritual love remains the ideal of perfection.”

When Vincent started talking like this, Veld couldn’t silence the niggling suspicion that it was all a big piss-take, and that somewhere inside that façade of politeness, Vincent was laughing at him. He felt his hackles rise. “Oh, get off your damn high horse. You think I don’t know all about _your_ recreational fucking?” He started ticking them off on his fingers: “Rebecca Tan in Telecoms, Sinitta Goldman-Hahn in Automotive, Gwen Potts at reception – “

Vincent’s scowl grew darker. “What happens between two consenting adults is none of your business.”

“I told you to keep it off the premises. I gave you a direct order.”

“You also ordered me to cultivate friendships among the congregation. Catriona is a friend, nothing more. Motherhood is a sacred calling. I would never trifle with a mother’s heart. I’m offended you think I would.”

“So you’re not fucking her?”

“How many times must I repeat myself?”

“Have you found out where they’re getting their mako from?”

“No – “

“Why not? If it’s not someone inside Shinra then they’re smuggling it from Wutai. You’ve been working on this case six weeks, Vince. Get your arse into gear.”

“I’ve been thinking…”

“Shiva’s tits! What?”

“Couldn’t we let them have their mako? What difference could it make to Shinra? They use so little, and it means so much to them. And they’re old, most of them. They know their faith is dying -”

“Time to knock it on the head then,” Veld snapped. “You’re really starting to aggravate me, Vince. Don’t do that. You have your orders. Shit or get off the pot. I want a name by the end of the week. Am I clear?”

“Crystal clear,” said Vincent.

.

There was no name by the end of the week. Veld wasn’t even surprised. The time had come to take matters into his own hands. He paid a visit to the minister’s house and had no trouble persuading her to cooperate. After all, she was breaking the law. Once he had the name he needed – a Mr T. L. MacDonald, 48, reactor engineer – he put the minster in the back of his car and drove her to the prison. He could have asked PSM to handle Mr MacDonald, but there was a certain professional satisfaction to be gained from tying up all the loose ends himself. When he was finished, he returned to the office and told Sharon to send Vincent to him immediately.

“One hour and forty-five minutes, Vince, that’s how long it took me. You had seven weeks and you couldn’t do it.”

“You told me to win their confidence – “

“Pussy-footing around,” Veld scoffed.

“That prison is no place for an old woman,” Vincent exclaimed.

“If you’d rather be a social worker, I can get Sharon to type up your resignation right now.”

Vincent’s fists clenched. “No.”

_Why?_ Veld wanted to shout. _Why are you so fucking stubborn?_

“Then do the job I hired you to do, Vince. I don’t pay you to babysit. Or to question company policy.”

“Are you saying I didn’t do a good job in Costa?”

“You did a good job in Costa,” Veld acknowledged.

“Then let me do what I’m good at. Give me another mission like that one.”

It was on the tip of Veld’s tongue to remind him that he couldn’t pick and choose. Threats to Shinra would not always take the form of gangsters and villains. They could come in any shape. White-haired grandfathers. Widowed mothers. Little orphans.

But then he remembered he had the perfect mission for Vincent. The request had come in only that morning.

“I’m sending you up north,” he said, pulling out a sheet of paper and scribbling down the instructions. “Your friend Faremis Gast has found something interesting in the ice. Tank will go with you. You’ll keep off the monsters and anyone else that comes sniffing round while Gast and his team dig it out. While you’re there, you take your orders directly from Gast. Is that understood?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Veld signed off on the order and passed it to Vincent. “Give that to Sharon, and get a chit for petty cash. You’ll need to get yourself some cold weather gear.”

.

Three days later Tank and Vincent began the long trek north by boat and chocobo. They were accompanied by three junior scientists, two army sappers, and five crates of equipment packed in straw. It took them a week to get to Icicle Inn, where Gast had set up a field office in an old wooden chalet at the edge of town. After a hot meal and good night’s sleep they set off once more, led by two young guides named Holzoff and Yamzi, across the snowfield to the foot of Gaea’s Cliffs. On the way they almost lost one of the sappers when a Hungry pounced, but Vincent put a bullet between its eyes and the sapper was extricated with no harm done – except, perhaps, to his dignity.

They spent the night in a cabin on the edge of the Great Glacier, arctic winds howling all around them. The next day Holzoff took the Turks and the sappers up the cliff and into the caves, while Yamzi went the long way round with the technicians and the crate-laden chocobos. After walking several miles into the cave complex, they came at last to a large cavern, a sort of natural cathedral, with windows of blue ice substituting for stained glass. Here they found Professor Gast, sitting suspended in a canvas sling halfway down a sheer rock face, gazing dreamily into the ice.

“Ah, Vincent,” Gast exclaimed when he saw who had arrived. “Put on a harness and come down here. You’ll want to see this.”

Vincent rappelled down until he was level with the Professor. For a long moment he was silent, staring. Then he said, “Poor woman.”

“That’s no woman. That, my boy, is Jenova.”

“What’s a jenova, sir?”

“Not what. Who. It’s the name I’ve given her. She’s a Cetra. My Ice Queen.”

“I thought the Cetra were a myth.”

“At the heart of every myth lies a kernel of truth, for those with the courage to believe. Your father believed. This was his idea, you know. He was writing up the proposal for this expedition when he died. He said the Knowlespole was the place to look for Cetra DNA. I’d hoped to turn up some bones, a skull or two, or even a complete skeleton if I was lucky. But _this…”_

“She’s dead,” said Vincent.

Gast laughed out loud. “She is perfect.”

“How long has she been here?”

“Centuries. Millenia. She’ll be very fragile. I want to move her in one piece if at all possible.”

“Move her, sir?”

“Yes, the sooner the better.”

“But - do you think we should? That is to say, she looks so…Serene. And a little sad. As if she’s known a great sorrow and now she’s sleeping to forget. Do you really think we ought to disturb her?”

“Well, I can’t study her here, can I? I need a lab. Once we’ve cut her out we’ll pack her in ice and move her to Nibelheim. It should be cold enough up at the reactor to keep her tissues from deteriorating, and we can put a laboratory in the basement of the mansion. There’ll be a steady power supply, at least. I’m so excited, Vincent! This is the discovery of a lifetime.”

.

 

“Let me guess,” said Tank. “He told you to shut up and sit down.”

Vincent crumpled the telegram in his fist.

“You’re fucking crazy, Vinnie. You know that, right? It’s just a dead body. What do you care what happens to it? You can bet your sweet fanny Jenova doesn’t care. And you know why? Because she’s _dead_.”

They had turned one of the smaller caves into a ops room, equipped it with a desk, a lamp, two chairs, a pair of camp beds and a mako-fired heater, on top of which Tank contrived to brew coffee. He was drinking some now. There was nothing much to do on this mission but hang around, drink coffee, and shoot the occasional monster. Vincent was getting sick of hanging round and drinking coffee.

“Next time one of us goes to the Inn,” said Tank, “We should bring back a couple of crates of beer.”

“The sappers brought beer.”

“Now you tell me.”

“Tragically, it froze, and all the caps blew off.”

“Bloody typical – “

“Hello?” a female voice echoed in the tunnel outside their cave.

“Holy shit,” hissed Tank. “I didn’t think she’d come back again. Go head her off at the pass, Vinnie.”

Their uninvited guest was a bewitchingly pretty girl, her hair a mass of auburn curls that looked too heavy for her slim neck. This was the third time she had paid them a visit. She was a very determined young lady. Today she wore a red cape over a pink wool dress and fur-lined hiking boots. Vincent assumed she must live somewhere close by – though where in this inhospitable landscape that could be, he couldn’t imagine. Yet to walk here every day from the Inn would have impossible.

“Will he see me?” she demanded.

“Miss Ifalna.” Vincent took her hand. “You cannot keep coming here. This is Shinra’s private property. No unauthorised persons are allowed in. I’m sorry.”

“Did you tell him how urgent it is?”

“Professor Gast is extremely busy – “

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing! I have to stop him.” She fought to push past, but she was small, and Vincent had no trouble holding her back.

“Damn you!” Ifalna cried. Then: “At least tell me where he’s taking it.”

“I can’t do that.”

Ifalna wrung her hands till the knuckles turned white. Angry tears glittered in her eyes. She blinked them away. Three times she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again without saying anything.

“This project is highly classified,” said Vincent. “You shouldn’t even know about it. Who has been talking to you?”

Her bright green eyes gave him a contemptuous look. “If Shinra want to keep their dirty deeds a secret, they shouldn’t conduct them with such fanfare. Down at the Inn people talk of nothing else.”

“They’d be wiser not to speculate on matters about which they know nothing.”

“Even a child knows it’s wrong to awaken the dead.” She squared her slender shoulders. “All right. I’m going now,” she said, although she didn’t sound – or look – defeated. “I won’t be back. Sooner or later, he’ll realise what he’s done. He’ll want to talk to me. When that day comes, tell him to seek out Bugenhagen. He’ll know where I am.”

“Wait – “ Remembering his duty, Vincent laid a hand on her arm. “Won’t you allow me to escort you home? These caves are full of monsters.”

“Are you worried about me? You should be worried about yourself – “

She tried to pull away; his hand tightened its grip, and the next thing he knew he was standing there holding a bronze bangle that had slipped from her wrist and she was running for the mouth of the cave.

“Tank!” he shouted.

The two of them chased her, but they couldn’t catch her. Outside the cave a blizzard was blowing. They strained their eyes for a glimpse of red, but she had vanished, and even the marks of her footprints had been lost to the drifting snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Veld's slang  
> loskop: lame brain, lit. "loose head"


	4. Hojo

“You let her get away,” said Veld.

Five weeks had passed: Gast’s Cetra was safely ensconced in the holding tank built for her behind the condensation chamber of the Nibelheim reactor, and Vincent had been summoned to Midgar to give an account of himself.

“That’s not true,” he said. “I can assure you – “

“You let her get away because you sympathised with her.”

“I was wrong. Jenova’s not dead.”

“Not _dead_?”

“Apparently.”

“How can she not be dead? She’s been stuck in a fucking rock for a _thousand years_.”

“I’m only telling you what Professor Gast told me.”

“Why wasn’t I informed of this earlier?”

“Professor Gast’s orders, sir. He asked me to tell you in person. And now I have.”

Fair enough. Some secrets were too sensitive to be trusted in a letter. Veld sat down, drummed his fingers on his blotter. “What’s her condition now?”

“The Professor seems to believe she’s in some kind of coma.”

“So she’s brain dead?”

Vincent shrugged.

“What’s he planning to do with her?”

“Study her, he said. He gave us a box of tissue samples to give to Doctor Hollander. I’ve put them in the refrigerator.”

Veld shuddered. He had a pretty strong stomach when it came to blood and gore, but picturing some thousand year old ectoplasm multiplying next to his sandwiches made his gorge rise. “Better run those over to him, quick.”

Vincent made no move to get out of his chair.

“What?” said Veld.

“You’re right – I _did_ sympathise with her. It would be futile to deny it. But I did my job. Tank and I turned the Inn upside down looking for her. We searched every inch of those caves, and the Glacier.”

“You didn’t find her.”

“I did my job,” Vincent insisted.

“If you want praise for doing the bare minimum, you’ve come to the wrong man. You and Tank can take that shit in the fridge over to Science and then get your arses right back here. We’re going to Cosmo Canyon.”

.

All around the Science Department’s enclosure the air was filled with the sounds of human activity - drilling, pounding, hammering, welding – but among the nissen huts a peculiar silence prevailed. Vincent imagined them all hunched over their microscopes, recording their observations in the same leatherbound notebooks that had lined the walls of his father’s study. Dr Nils Hollander’s office was in Hut No. 4. He was a man Vincent knew only by reputation; Tadpole, who had worked with him down in Mideel, had called him a bull in a china shop. In person he seemed amiable enough, if rather young for his position. But then, what was Shinra all about, if not youth and new beginnings? Hollander was delighted to receive his Jenova samples, grabbing first Tank’s hand and then Vincent’s and pumping them vigorously in thanks. Then he passed the styrofoam box to his assistant, a dainty girl with pink cheeks and cropped black curls, and told her to put it in the cold room.

Vincent followed her, partly out of curiosity and partly because she was so pretty. “Allow me to introduce myself. Vincent Valentine, Turk extraordinaire.” His breath made clouds in the chilled air.

She laughed. “I know who you are.”

“Then you have me at a disadvantage, Miss - ?”

“Hewley. Gillian Hewley.”

“A lovely name for a lovely lady.”

She laughed. “Don’t you try your flattery on me, Mr Valentine. I know all about your tricks.”

“Do you? What do you know?”

“That you’re a terrible flirt and a fast worker!”

“Miss Hewley -"

" _Doctor_ Hewley, please."

"Brains as well as beauty! Here, let me help you with that – “ She was standing on tiptoe but couldn’t quite reach the shelf. He took the box from her hands and set it down, while Gillian Hewley watched him.

“You _are_ tall, aren’t you?” she said admiringly. “You look a lot like your father.”

“You knew my father?”

“Not personally, but I have a friend who – “

She never completed the sentence. A loud noise interrupted her: it sounded like an animal’s cry of distress, something between a scream and a grand horn’s bellow, and it was coming from the courtyard.

“Vinnie!” Tank shouted. “Get out here!”

Vincent’s gun was already in his hand. He shouldered his way past the scientists and outside into the cold shadow cast by the great pillar. Something like a sahagin or a giant frog was shuffling down the path, its cry hoarse and pitiful; in one hand – paw – hand, the monster clutched a human arm still dressed in its lab-coat sleeve, and was swinging the limb like a club, spraying blood left and right. Vincent raised his arm and fired once. The creature thudded to the ground and lay still.

A new cry of distress rose, a man’s voice this time: “My sample!”

Behind Vincent, Gillian gasped. “What have you done?”

The man came running down the path and knelt beside the fallen monster, checking its neck for a pulse before raising his head to glare accusingly at Vincent from behind black-rimmed glasses. “You killed my sample. How dare you? How _dare_ you?”

“It was a monster,” said Vincent.

The man had Wutaian features: arched eyebrows, fine black hair, furious dark eyes. “Fool!” he cried. “Can’t you tell the difference between a monster and an experiment?”

“They look like the same thing to me,” said Tank, who had come to stand by Vincent’s side.

Vincent gestured at the severed arm with his gun. “What about that poor soul? What happened to him?”

“He was an idiot who didn’t follow my instructions. I can do without such bumbling incompetents – “

“Vinnie,” Tank interrupted. His voice was different: low, urgent. “Look. Look at its face.”

Vincent did as he was asked, though at first he couldn’t see why. But then did see. The dead beast’s features looked almost human. Oddly familiar, in fact. How was that possible? Were his eyes playing tricks? No – Tank was seeing it too.

“I know that face,” said Tank. “I know that man.”

The monster dead on the ground with Vincent’s bullet-hole between its eyes had the face of the man-mountain they’d arrested in Corel.

“How -?” said Tank.

Vincent put a hand over his mouth.

“You need to leave. Now,” said Gillian behind them.

“Yes, go, get out,” cried the furious scientist, waving both hands dismissively. “You’ve done enough damage for one day. And don’t think I won’t report this to your superior, Turk. Perhaps he’ll give you to me to make up for it – “

The two Turks couldn’t run to the car fast enough. Vincent had the steadier pair of hands. He took the wheel. Halfway back, he had to pull over to let Tank vomit.

.

Back in the office, Veld told Sharon to hold all his calls, then poured them each a double brandy and one for himself. Tank drained his in a single gulp. “It won’t look any better through a veil of alcohol,” said Vincent, but he drank it anyway.

“And what was it?” said Veld.

Tank answered. “Mako mutation. We saw it a lot during the war. I lost some mates that way.”

“He wasn’t sick when we brought him in,” said Vincent. “They did it to him. That scientist called him an experiment. Why would anyone deliberately give someone mako poisoning?”

“ ‘That scientist’,” said Tank, “Was Dr Hojo.”

“ _That_ was Dr Hojo?” Vincent exclaimed in surprise

“What did you expect?” asked Veld.

“I don’t know, but – Dr Hojo is so famous, and he’s so reclusive, I assumed there must be a reason no one ever saw him, some disfigurement, or perhaps an allergy to sunlight.”

“Hojo’s not like other people, that’s for sure.” For a moment Veld sat drumming his fingers, indecisive. Then he pushed back his chair and stood up. “All right, you two, come with me.”

“To Cosmo Canyon? Right _now_?” said Vincent.

“We’ll go to the Canyon tomorrow. Today we’re going to Healen. I want to show you something.”

.

The drive took several hours. Veld steered one-handed, his other elbow propped on the rolled-down window. Nobody spoke much. Tank and Vincent watched the scenery go by, dry grass, yellow mesa and patches of dead, dusty soil gradually yielding to greener hills: woods, flowering shrubs, waterfalls. Veld kept the radio playing.

At length they came to a pair of electronic gates set in a high stone wall topped with razor wire. The gates bore the Shinra logo; the guards were Public Safety M.P.s. They examined Veld’s ID closely before they let him through. The paved driveway led to a handsome, many-gabled mansion with a spacious gravel parking lot out front. More M.P.s were on duty here, as well as several Turks Vincent had never seen before. Veld took Tank and Vincent along a path that led round the side of the mansion and under a rose arbor to the green lawns at the back of the house. To the right were clay tennis courts; to the left, some sort of gym-in-a-greenhouse, and straight ahead, two manicured playing fields, on one of which a game was in progress.

“Is this a school?” asked Vincent. He hadn’t seen any children. The players on the field looked like men.

Veld said, “A training facility.“

“Holy fucking shit!” cried Tank.

One of the players, with the ball tucked under his arm, had picked up an opponent who was standing in his way – picked him up one-handed, and thrown him high into the air. The one who’d been thrown twisted like a cat, landed on his feet, and started running after the one with the ball as though what had just happened was simplest, most natural thing in the world.

Their game was like a movie being run at double speed. The players were little more than blurs. The action flowed from end to end and back again. When the scrum locked shoulders, pushing and shoving, the Turks felt the earth tremble beneath their feet. A receiver planted the ball on the ground and kicked it: the ball whizzed over the trees and out of sight with a noise like a small rocket.

“What the hell?” said Tank. “Who are these guys, Chief?”

“This is Shinra’s SOLDIER program.”

“They’re soldiers?”

“Yes. A new kind of soldier. Stronger and faster than ordinary men, as you can see. And much more difficult to kill. Can you imagine an entire army made up of men like these?”

“They’d be fucking invincible.” It was hard to tell from his voice whether Tank was thrilled or appalled at the prospect.

“The ultimate deterrent,” said Vincent.

“Exactly,” said Veld. “And do you know what makes them so strong?”

“Mako, I assume. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”

“Also correct. Final question: do you know whose work this is?”

“Let me guess,” said Tank. “Hojo.”

Veld nodded. “No one knows more than he does about the effects of mako on the human body. This program was set up right after the war ended. We’ve been keeping it under wraps. It’s only in the last year or so that we’ve seen this sort of success.”

“Who are those men?” asked Vincent. “Were they once regular soldiers?”

“A good question. Until recently, it was impossible to predict how any given person would react to mako poisoning. The _fundis_ have got better at that, but it’s still a bit hit and miss. Some of those men were PSM, yes. Some volunteer for the program and some, if they look like good candidates, are seconded. The program also uses a lot of convicted criminals, lifers or men convicted of capital offenses. They’re allowed to volunteer for this program as an alternative to their sentence. I’m guessing that’s what happened to the – to the test subject you shot today, Vincent.”

Tank looked as if his guts were churning. “Nobody in their right mind would volunteer for that.”

“No,” Veld agreed, “But if you had a chance of becoming _that_ – “ he gestured at the players - “You might take a shot. Especially if your alternative is life behind bars. Or death.”

“There are fates worse than death,” said Tank stubbornly. “So what’s your point, Chief? You brought us here to make a point. Are you trying to tell us that you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs?”

Veld didn’t like Tank’s tone. It wasn’t a Turks’ place to criticise company policy. He said, “They wanted you for this program, Tank. Did you know that?”

“ _Tank_?” exclaimed Vincent, glancing over at his partner. Tank had gone very still –rigid, almost, as if he’d stepped on a landmine that would blow up the moment he tried to move.

“Vince doesn’t know how you came to join us. Do you want me to tell him, or will you?”

“I came from the prison,” said Tank stiffly.

Vincent stared at him. “You told me you were in the cavalry, a tank driver. Panzer test pilot.”

“Tank came from death row,” said Veld. “He killed his C.O.”

“He was an asshole,” said Tank. “A  bullying dickhead. We had the worst morale in the entire regiment. Some of our conscripts were just little kids, sixteen, seventeen. They’d never been away from home before. He made their lives a fucking misery.”

“You strangled him in his sleep.”

“My entire company cheered when they heard he was dead.”

“D’you have any idea how close you came to being selected for SOLDIER?” said Veld. “If I’d put in my request a day later, Hojo would have had first pick. You were a strong candidate. You’ve got the right physique. You’d already shown a high tolerance for mako. What would you have done then, Tank, if I hadn’t come along? Would you have taken the gamble? You could have been out there on that field with them right now. You might have been their sergeant-major. Or would you have chosen the firing squad?”

While Veld was talking, the game had ended, and the players were coming off the field now, heading for the mansion. They were all big men, none under six foot, broad shouldered, muscled like behemoths. It took Vincent a moment to realise the other odd thing about them. They all had blue eyes.

“I like the job I’ve got just fine, thanks, Chief,” said Tank. He looked as if he’d shrunk a little. He looked _chastened_.

“Good.”

Vincent suddenly remembered something. “What about my minister? From the Church in Sector Five?”

Veld cuffed his ear, not hard. “Are you _doff_ , Vince? She’s an old woman. Anyway, she pleaded guilty to the misdemeanour, and she got time off for cooperating. She’ll be out at the end of next month.”

.

Because he was in a hurry, Veld decided that he, Tank and Vincent would travel by helicopter to Cosmo Canyon. As a result, a trip that normally took ten days was completed in two. Bugenhagen gave every appearance of being glad to see them. He welcomed the Turks into his home, asked eagerly for news of his old Shinra friends, and denied all knowledge of a young woman named Ifalna. She might, he admitted, have passed through Cosmo Canyon. Did they have a photograph of her? No? Pity. All kinds of people came to the Canyon; some stayed for a night and some stayed for a lifetime. Veld couldn’t expect an old man like himself to remember all the faces that came and went. Now, was there anything else he could help them with?

Tank busied himself talking to the elders, finding out what they knew. Vincent spent his days wandering the desert, shooting sahagin and griffin, and his evenings staring moodily into the Candle, slowly getting drunk on Cosmo moonshine. Something was eating away at him. Veld presumed it was the incident with Hojo. He worried that Vincent might do something stupid, like try to quit. The time when Vincent could have resigned from the Turks and transferred to another department was long gone, although Veld didn’t know if he realised this. It wasn’t the kind of policy that got written into their contracts.

All the Turks knew there were certain departments in the company to which special, unspoken rules applied. Science was one, Weapons Development another. They knew this, because it was their job to enforce those special rules. Of course, in one sense all employees were free to resign if they wished. Unhappy employees were actively encouraged to hand in their notice. They could throw a farewell party, clear their desk, collect their back pay, and leave the building, and if they came from one of the normal departments they’d go home and that would be the end of the matter.

If they came from one the special departments, they would never be seen again.

No one had tried to resign from one of the special departments for four or five years now. That didn’t mean there were no disaffected employees, or no moonlight flits, but the Turks were developing other methods for dealing with those.

Veld assumed his Turks understood that theirs was one of the special departments. To spell it out for them would have been to insult their intelligence. He’d had a few raw rookies drop out of the training program, but no fully fledged Turk had ever wanted or asked to leave. Yet he knew it was only a matter of time. The job took its toll; eventually someone would crack. Veld hoped that when that time came, the Turk in question would have the sense to vanish without trace, without a word of warning.

Vincent, though…. If that one ever made up his mind to quit, he’d want to justify himself before he went.

As for Bugenhagen – well, the company secrets in his head were of no value to Shinra any more. Technology had moved on. He would not otherwise have been allowed to retire. Bugenhagen was a slippery one. Certainly he knew more than he let on about the girl Ifalna. Veld would have liked to put the squeeze on the old weasel, but the President would never allow it. When Julius was a child, Bugenhagen had taught him how to shoot an air-rifle, and had built toy zeppelins for him that actually flew. Julius tended to be sentimental about such things.

The two Turks and their Chief headed back to Midgar with nothing much to show for their time and efforts. Veld decided he’d earned the weekend off, and went to Kalm to see his fiancée.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Veld's slang:  
> doff: thick, stupid


	5. Love

            Veld had always planned to get married one day. His fiancée came from a good Kalm family, and was everything he wanted in a wife: pretty, affectionate, domesticated, intelligent but not too intelligent, and dedicated to his comfort. Her family were pressing him to name the day. He pleaded the demands of work, his indispensability to the President, but those were merely excuses.

His fiancée was a good woman. He was not a good man, though he served a good cause. The process of shedding his moral baggage had begun in the war, long before he joined Shinra. Nowadays he travelled light, ethically speaking. This lightness made him flexible, decisive, quick to respond to danger, all qualities essential to his job. He was, in short, a man of few principles, and not ashamed to admit it.

Yet even a Turk needs a moral compass, though it shouldn’t be a complicated one. Otherwise, he would be nothing but a mindless thug. Veld still clung to a few principles, ones he absolutely could not do without. Loyalty was vital to him. Loyalty and faithfulness. He had made the conscious decision to be loyal to Julius Shinra; his compass oriented itself around that lodestar. He didn’t know if he could give the same kind of loyalty to a wife, but he felt it would be wrong to marry without it.

In Kalm he had romance; in Midgar he had recreational fucking. He wasn’t ready to give up the latter for the former. In this he was, he knew, no different from most men. Julius Shinra enjoyed plenty of his own recreational fucking, leaving his Chief Turk Veld to sort out the consequences. Veld spent his professional life tidying up other people’s messes. He didn’t want his personal life going the same way. For similar reasons, he did not want to hurt his fiancée.

Moreover: what man who truly loved a woman, who cared about her welfare, would willingly drag her into the kind of life Veld lead? A man’s family were his hostages to fortune. There was no more powerful leverage to use against a man than his wife and children. If Veld were to have a wife and children, and his enemies were to somehow get hold of them… In his line of work, he knew all too well what choices he might be forced to make, what betrayals might become inevitable. Perhaps it would be wiser to remain a bachelor. Yet he did love his Anneke – not enough to make the necessary sacrifices for her sake, yet too much to let her go.

While he wrestled inwardly with this problem, the months became a year, and then two. Midgar’s central pillar had been completed; plates one, two and three were in place. Floors 1 to 20 of the new Shinra Building were declared open for business, and the first departments to make the move up from the ground to the tower were Finance, Social Orthotics, Automotive Design, Personnel, and Administrative Research. For the first few weeks Veld commuted up from ground each day, but this quickly began to feel like a waste of time. What did he need a place of his own for? All he did there was sleep. He didn’t own stuff, _things,_ baggage. He never took women to his apartment; he never let anyone he didn’t trust know where he lived. The Shinra Tower had a gym and showers and a twenty-four cafeteria; shops, hotels and restaurants were popping up all over the plates. So he moved a bed and a wardrobe into the back room of his office, and made himself at home.

Then he found out that Tadpole had got herself knocked up. The girl seemed prone to those kinds of accidents. She’d hid it from him, knowing he would make her get rid of it. Now it was too late. She was one of his best field operatives and he had to put her on desk duty. And in the end it was all for nothing: after three days of labour the doctors cut the dead baby out of her body. They said it was due to her having starved as a child. Hips too narrow, or something. By dying the baby had spared him the necessity of deciding what to do about it, but to watch Tadpole wither away afterwards, like the grass in the cold soil of Midgar, was almost too painful to bear. If he could have brought her baby back, he would have.

“God took her to preserve her,” Tadpole declared to anyone who would listen. “She was too pure for this world. These dirty hands shouldn’t touch a baby. I’d only hurt her.”

Tadpole stopped eating, stopped sleeping, stopped washing. She sat at her desk playing with her gun. The other Turks were afraid for her. Afraid _of_ her. Veld knew what he had to do. There was a clinic in Kalm he trusted, with a psychiatric ward. He drove her down there himself. When he handed her over to the nurses (they were so gentle with her), he wondered if the ache of loss gnawing at his heart was the kind of thing a father might feel. Somehow, he felt, this tragedy could have been avoided. But how? What should he have done differently? What had he failed to do?

.

            Now that they were based in the same building, Julius had got into the habit of dropping by Veld’s office, usually in the evening, sometimes on business, sometimes to drink Veld’s brandy and shoot the breeze. Tonight he’d brought a book, a thick hardback as heavy as a couple of bricks. He dropped it onto Veld’s desk with a thud that sent all the pens and pencils jumping. “You’re in there,” he said.

Veld looked at the title. “ _The Complete History of the Great Grasslands War._ ”

“Page seven hundred and sixty-three,” said the President.

Veld flipped through the pages, found it, ran down it with his finger until he reached the name. _Pierre Verdot._ “My alias,” he said.

“How long d’you think it’ll take someone to figure out that the spy Pierre Verdot, ‘a twenty-three year old clock-maker from Kalm’, is the same person as Captain Pieter Veld, a twenty-three year old clock-maker from Kalm who’s now my Chief Turks? Don’t you see? This makes you a target for every chook-fucker with a grudge about losing the war.”

“I’ve always been a target. I’ve managed to survive so far.”

“I just don’t get it, Piet. The war’s over. We won, and we’re going to keep winning. Why can’t they let sleeping dogs lie? What’s the point in dredging up the past?”

“You know the saying. Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The President snorted derisively. “It’s the exact opposite. History’s nothing but a cycle of revenge. You did for me so now I’m going to do for you. What this world needs is to forget. You go to sleep and when you wake up, everything’s wiped away. There’s no bitterness and no hard feelings. Start afresh. Eh? You know I’m right.”

“If only there were a materia for collective amnesia,” said Veld, getting up to fetch the decanter.

“Yes, this world can do nicely without history books, thank you very much,” declared the President. “Or historians. Poking around in people’s past, stirring up trouble. If people want history they can watch it on TV. Obviously we should keep one copy for our own library, but we’ll pulp the rest and use it to make Shin-roll. That’ll save a few forests, eh? The hippies will be delighted. I’ll have PSM start clearing out the libraries tomorrow. Make it a double, Piet. And the bookstores. We’ve already pulled this one. You need to send one of your men to have a little talk with – who is she again?” The President checked the cover for author’s name. “Gertrude Huberman. Shiva’s tits, sounds like a spinster with cobwebs in her cunt. Doesn’t it? Find out who her sources are and shut them down. In fact, why not shut down all the history departments while we’re at it? Make ‘em learn something useful, eh? Biology. Engineering. We always need more engineers. And you can ask this Gertrude Huberman if she wants a job. I like the way she writes. The PR department could use a tame historian. Ask her if she’s ever thought about writing for TV.”

.

Armed with a copy of a death certificate made out for Pierre Verdot, clockmaker – _age at death: 23. Cause of death: gunshot wounds –_ Vincent headed south to the village of Luca Paula east of Junon, where Mrs Gertrude Huberman had lived since the closure of Bovadem university twelve years ago. He intended to pose as a keen student of history: his plan was to exchange the documentary proof of the spy Verdot’s death for the names and addresses of her primary sources. Hopefully she would never realise the fate to which she would, all unwittingly, be condemning them. Vincent did not wish to cause the lady any unnecessary distress.

He quickly realised that he had underestimated his target’s intelligence. Mrs Huberman saw right through his disguise. She was, after all, a historian: she knew the names of more than a few people who had mysteriously vanished after getting on the wrong side of Shinra. But she was also the mother of teenage twin boys, and it was in them Vincent, casting around for some other means of persuasion, found what the Chief would call _leverage_. The Shinra army was always looking for young boys to swell the ranks of its recruits. He informed Mrs Huberman of this.

She cried. It was very unpleasant, but it had to be done.

Once she’d given him the information he needed, he produced the offer of employment drawn up by Personnel. _Assistant script editor, historical drama division_. The salary was generous, even by Midgar standards. At first she didn’t believe it. Then she snatched it and signed as if afraid he would change his mind.

“I don’t know if this is a dream or a nightmare,” she said.

She stood in her doorway watching him walk down the path, clutching her boys to her bosom. Making sure he left.

Would he have taken her boys, if it had come that? Vincent knew there was nothing to be gained by asking himself such questions, but he couldn’t help it. After some reflection, the conclusion he arrived at was that there was a certain category of threat which, by its very nature, would never need to be carried out. The precise threat would, of course, vary from target to target. Said target would capitulate the moment the threat was mentioned, because the very thought of the thing being threatened was more than they could bear to contemplate. And so, if he, Vincent, uttered that threat, that terrible threat, knowing it would achieve what he needed it achieve, knowing he would never have to act on it – did that make him morally better, or morally worse?

Veld would probably say it made him efficient.

.

            Another evening, another visit from the President. This time he was carrying a bottle of chilled champagne and two crystal flutes. “What’s the occasion?” asked Veld.

The President popped the cork and let the champagne bubble over into the flutes. He handed one to Veld. “Congratulate me. I’ve decided to get married.”

Veld laughed.

“I’m serious,” said the President. “It’s time I had an heir.”

“That shouldn’t pose a problem.”

“No indeed – “ The President glanced complacently at his groin, and raised his glass in a salute. “To my virility.”

Veld drank the toast, then asked, “Who’s the lucky girl?”

“Well know, I don’t know if I’d call her that.” The President’s expression grew serious. “It’s a hard job, being Mrs Shinra. It killed my mother, you know. Wore her heart out. I need to be sure the woman I choose can handle the demands of the position.”

“You mean you don’t have one in mind yet?”

“I’m thinking of Patricia Palmer.”

“Paul Palmer’s daughter? She’s a beauty. But she’s only seventeen. Her father will never agree.”

“He will if I ask him. I’m willing to wait a year or two for the right woman. And that, my friend, is where you come in. I want you to run some background checks on her. Skeletons in the family closet, mad aunts, hidden debts, that kind of thing. I want a list of all her old boyfriends. And her school records. And you must talk to her doctor, see if there’s any history of – ah – women’s troubles. I want to know she’s up to the mark before I make my offer. It would be bloody awkward if I engaged myself and then had to break it off.”

“There is Roland,” Veld reminded him.

“Yes… We’ll have to give her brother a seat on the board. We’ll find something for him. Something even _he_ can’t fuck up.”

.

            The next morning Veld was tidying his desk before setting out for the bank, when Sharon knocked on his door and said Tank wanted to have a word.

“Of course. Come in, man, have a seat. Is something wrong?”

Tank looked uneasy, which wasn’t like him. “No,” he said, “Nothing’s wrong.”

Yet Veld could see sweat glistening on his forehead. It wasn’t a hot day. “Are you sick?”

“Me? No! Maybe. I ate some dodgy prawns last night. Been feeling a bit off. That’s not why I came to see you.” It seemed the palms of his hands were also sweating. He rubbed them against his knees. “I’m just going to come right out with it, okay? It’s a personal request. Obviously you can refuse. But no harm asking, right? I want a sabbatical.”

“A sabbatical?” This was a new one.

“A leave of absence.”

“I know what a sabbatical is. Why?”

“I want to spend some more time in Cosmo Canyon.”

This, Veld realised, wasn’t a lie. But it wasn’t the truth either.

Tank’s nervousness; the way he kept forcing his eyes to meet Veld’s more than was natural; the pitch of his voice, a little higher than usual – Veld knew these signs. This was a frightened man forcing himself to appear calm.

The back of Veld’s neck began to prickle with forboding.

He strove to keep his own voice normal. “Not your kind of place, is it, Cosmo Canyon?”

“No. Maybe. Well – I’ve been thinking, Chief. You recall I spent a lot of time while we were down there talking to the local elders.”

Veld did remember. He’d been impressed by Tank’s diligence.

“Some of their ideas are pretty wild. It got me thinking. What they’ve got going on down there, we ought to know more about it. I mean us, as a department, we should know more about it.”

“Their Planet Life Study? It’s claptrap. Pseudoscience.”

“Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. I’d say we don’t know enough about it.”

“Then we should send a scientist.”

“I _am_ an engineer, Chief.”

_If I was going to do a runner_ , Veld was thinking, _this is how I’d do it. I’d propose a mission, somewhere remote and unfriendly to Shinra. I’d get authorisation. I’d go there; I’d file a couple of reports. My boss is a busy man. He has a hundred things to think about. I’d gradually drift out of contact, and before anyone realised I was going, I’d be gone._

“Of course you are,” said Veld.

He’d always thought it would be Vincent who would crack. Not Tank. Solid Tank. Dependable Tank. Intelligent Tank.

“How long do you want?” he asked.

“Gotta give it at least six months, to do it properly. Gotta win their trust first, to gain access to the deep stuff.”

It sounded so plausible. But Bugenhagen would never trust an ex-Turk, not in six months or six years. Tank knew that.

“Let me think on it,” said Veld. “Now’s not the time. I need to be somewhere. Draw up a written proposal and put it on my desk. We’ll discuss it tomorrow.”

“Will do, Chief.”

Tank went back to his desk and started banging away on the typewriter. Veld left the office swiftly. He didn’t go straight to the bank – it was only across the road, and he needed to walk, to breathe, to think.

Experience had taught him to trust his instincts, but this time he wanted to be wrong. Tank had been doing this job for years without any problems. Why would he suddenly decide to do a runner? Did Cosmo Canyon even have anything to do with it?

Or was he, Veld, the one who was cracking up, imagination running overtime? Maybe he was the one who needed the holiday.

A gut feeling wasn’t enough. He needed evidence. If he, Veld, were planning to disappear, how would he prepare for it? Escape cost money. He would organise his finances.

The ledger at the bank showed no unusual movements on Tank’s account: no large withdrawals, sales of shares, or transfers to banks in Wutai. Veld breathed a sigh of relief.

The Palmer accounts checked out, too. Julius could have his fair maiden _and_ her trust fund. What with the building of his castle-in-the-sky, and his company expanding so rapidly in every direction, buying up smaller ventures the way a Hungry snapped up careless travellers, liquidity was getting a bit tight. The Palmer gil would come in handy.

            Veld headed back to the office feeling fifty pounds lighter. Tank’s proposal was already on his desk. Tank himself had gone out, Sharon said, to finish up some jobs; he’d taken several hundred gil from petty cash and some materia from the arsenal.

            _If he’s in tomorrow morning_ , thought Veld, _that means there’s nothing to worry about. He can have his bloody sabbatical. If he comes in._

_._

By nine thirty the next morning Veld knew Tank had gone. A quick phone call to the bank confirmed his suspicions: Tank’s account had been cleaned out the previous evening, ten minutes before closing time. Veld should have told them to alert him if this happened. Why hadn’t he? Was he being sabotaged by own subconscious now?

“Sharon,” he said, “Tank and I have to go out of town on business. We may be some time.”

He packed a knapsack, equipped himself with a headband, slotted a Restore, an Esuna and a Wall into his crystal bracer, and set out in pursuit of his renegade Turk.

Tank’s apartment down in Sector Seven yielded no clues. His landlady said he’d told her he was going to Mideel for a little spa holiday. Veld assumed this was a false trail; probably the first of many. The waitress at the station coffee shop had seen the man in Veld’s photograph boarding the night train for Junon. Veld bought himself a ticket and had a coffee while he waited. He arrived in Junon as the sun was setting, but the last ferry for the western continent had set sail three hours earlier.

There were times over the next two weeks when Veld so lost himself in the work that he forgot who it was he was chasing. A man matching Tank’s description had been seen late at night wandering the beach at Spinalonga; by morning he had vanished, and the local constabulary had recovered a pile of clothes from the high tide mark: dark suit, white shirt, crepe-soled boots. Nice try. If Tank was planning to die he could have done it in Midgar.

Tank was good, but Veld was better. It didn’t take him long to pick up the trail again. Eventually he ran his target to earth in a village a day’s bus ride east of Gongaga. He’d suspected all along that Tank would try to get to Wutai. The innkeeper confirmed that the man in photograph was at that very moment upstairs in room 102, first on the left. Don’t bother to call, said Veld. He’s expecting me. He drew his gun as he climbed the stairs. The door stood ajar. Veld cast Wall around himself and tried to push it open, but something heavy was blocking the way. It was Tank: he had hanged himself from the doorknob, using his tie as a noose.

.

            “Oh, thank god you’re back,” cried Sharon when he walked through the door. “Where have you been? It’s been mayhem round here without you. The President’s doing his nut.” She paused, and took a longer look at his face. “Are you all right, Chief?”

“I’m fine. Tired. Where’s my post?”

“On your desk. Where’s Tank?”

“Gone home,” said Veld.

Tank’s body would arrive tomorrow in the refrigerated hearse Veld had hired for the purpose. He would be buried with all due honours, as befitted a Turk fallen in the line of duty. Veld would share the news with his Turks tomorrow morning. It wouldn’t be the first time they had lost a comrade on a mission. For tonight, he was burnt out. All he wanted to do was sleep.

The phone rang. Sharon answered it. “Yes,” she said, “Yes, yes….” Cradling the receiver against her shoulder, she whispered, “This woman’s been calling all week. She won’t talk to anyone but you. She says it’s very urgent. Her name’s Anneke du Pré. Do you know her?”

The very roots of his teeth were aching with weariness. “Put her through,” he said. “And go home. It’s late.” He waited until he heard the door close before he picked up the phone. On the other end of the line, his fiancée was crying so hard he could hardly make out what she was saying.

.

Sleep was impossible. He went to the common room to make himself a cup of coffee and found Vincent slouched in one of the leather armchairs all alone, drinking Zolom XXX from a bottle and watching an old black and white movie on the grainy TV. He looked up when he heard Veld come in. “Chief. You’re back.”

“Do you want to get drunk, Vince? I want to get drunk. Let’s go get drunk.”

.

They were just in time to catch the last train down the pillar. Neither of them spoke much. Vincent didn’t ask where they were going; he simply followed.

Arcangelico Corneo was an old See-Eye of Veld’s, a canny businessman who knew how to keep his trap shut. He offered them a quiet nook and two of his best girls, but Veld wasn’t in the mood for either of those things. He wanted noise; he wanted to be surrounded by people. He and Vincent took a couple of seats at the corner of the bar, with their backs to the wall, and settled down to the task of getting seriously plastered.

For almost an hour the two of them sat drinking side by side, barely uttering a word beyond, “Barman, another.” But three lagers with whiskey chasers will loosen even the most guarded of tongues, especially when one, if not both of them has a lot weighing on his mind.

“Vince,” said Veld.

“Yes?”

“I have a question for you.”

“Fire away.”

“What’s the one thing in the world you’re most afraid of? The thing you’d go to any lengths to avoid? I mean, the thing that’s so terrible, so horrific, that you’d rather die than face it?”

“You mean a fate worse than death?”

“Uh,” said Veld. He’d been trying to avoid that phrase.

Vincent thought about it. “I’d rather shoot myself in the head than be tortured to death.”

“No, no, no,” said Veld. “Something that doesn’t involve death. Something that’s so bad you can’t live with the thought of it. You’d risk everything to escape it.”

The good thing about Vincent, Veld decided, was that he didn’t ask why Veld was asking. He didn’t pry. He minded his own business. More people should take a leaf out of his book.

“A life lived without love,” Vincent pronounced at last.

Veld laughed out loud.

“You find that amusing?”

Vincent had such a great scowl, like an old-fashioned movie matinee idol. “You could have been an actor, Vince, you know that?”

“Why do you mock love?”

“You told me you’d sworn off romance.”

“At least _I’ve_ known love.”

“Hey, I’ve known love.”

“Permit me to doubt that.”

“My girlfriend’s pregnant.”

It would be hard to say which of them was more astonished: Veld at himself for having blurted it out, or Vincent at what he was hearing.

Vincent was the first to recover. “Am I to congratulate you, or commiserate?”

“I’ll do the decent thing, of course. I always meant to marry her. I’m just – There’s never any _time_.”

“You’re an honourable man, chief.”

“Wrong. I’ve been living a double life for years. I told her I work in urban planning. They all, her family, my family, think I’m Shinra’s chief clock repairman.”

“That’s not a complete lie. You _are_ a fixer.”

“I don’t know what to do with her. Them. She can’t know what I do. They can’t live here. I’ve no time to play happy families.”

“Bringing a child into the world is a great responsibility.”

“D’you think I don’t bloody know that, man? Barman, two more here!”

A short silence fell. Then Veld said, “Don’t tell anyone. I shouldn’t have told you. The fewer people who know about her, the safer she is.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“I trust you, Vince.”

“You can trust me, Chief.”

They were both quite drunk now.

Veld said, “Can I ask you something, Vince? Something I’ve always wondered.”

“Asking is free.”

“Why’d you want this job? Why’d you stick at it? You could have been anything.”

“I like shooting things.”

“You could have done that in the army.”

“I don’t like taking orders.”

“But you take them from me.”

“I respect you.”

“Oh,” said Veld, surprised.

“You know who and what you are and you’re not ashamed of it. You do what you have to do and you don’t let it keep it you awake at night.”

Veld only wished that were true.

“Do you remember,” Vincent continued, “When I first joined the department, you told me there were two kinds of men, those who can kill and those who can’t. At the time I thought the dichotomy was rather oversimplified, but since then I’ve come to see that you were right. Every man is either a lamb or a wolf. Most are lambs. You can’t turn a wolf into a lamb, and you can’t force a lamb to become a wolf. We are what we are.

“But there are also two kinds of wolves. Some of the wolves prey on the lambs, and some of the wolves guard the lambs. They’re the dogs. You’re a dog. I’m a dog. We had the potential to be wolves, but we didn’t take that path. Was it choice? Destiny?”

“Destiny,” said Veld. He was thinking of Julius, with his charisma and his dreams and the money to make them happen; and he was thinking of his father, and he was thinking that Vincent had a point. He could never have lived his father’s life, building clocks, chairing town council meetings, taking a week’s annual holiday at the seaside. His father was one of the lambs, always bleating about propriety and what people might think.

Somehow, this conversation with Vincent was beginning to cheer Veld up.

“It’s my fate to be a Turk,” said Vincent. “That’s why I’ve stayed. If I had not joined the Turks, I would have yielded to my wolf nature eventually. It’s better to be a dog. A dog has _utility_. A dog finds fulfilment in defending the lambs from the wolves. That is the whole purpose of its existence. Of itself, a dog is of no importance. Only the lambs matter. And when a dog finally understand that, it can make peace with its destiny.”

“That’s - really beautiful,” Veld slurred.

“Thank you. It’s the product of many hours spent in deep reflection.”

Their glasses were empty. Veld ordered two more. Turning back to Vincent, he said, “You’ve got a way with words, haven’t you? Have you ever thought about becoming a poet?”

“I may have tried my hand occasionally,” Vincent admitted.

“I knew it!” Veld slapped the countertop. “Go on then.”

“What?”

“Let me hear one.”

“What? No,” Vincent almost shouted.

“Ag, come on, man, you know you want to.”

“They’re private.”

“Nothing’s private. Listen, I’ll make you a deal. I won’t tell anyone about your poems if you don’t tell anyone about Anneke.”

“You’re very drunk, Chief,” said Vincent.

“Tell me a poem, Vince. Go on. Go on. I want to hear one. Don’t make me order you.”

“All right.” Vincent closed his eyes, as if the words were written on inside of his eyelids, and began to recite:

       “Lady blue, what fate entombed thee  
        Frozen in the rock’s embrace?  
       Shall we never know the story  
       Of thy beauty’s fall from grace?  
       Icy lips move not, yet speak  
       Of some great loss hath left its trace.  
       Within this glacier cold and bleak,  
       Sorrow sits upon thy face – “

“Pffft!” Veld laughed so hard the beer came spurting out of his nose. “It sits on her _face_? For fuck’s sake, Vince.”

“Shut up,” Vincent scowled.

Veld had been seized by a wild fit of laughing beyond his control. People were turning to look at him. He could hardly breathe. His ribs were aching. It was ridiculous. He didn’t know when he’d last felt so happy.

Wiping away the tears of laughter with his sleeve, he said, “Thanks, Vince. That was bloody _lekker_. I feel – invigorated..”

“I’m wounded,” said Vincent, straight-faced.

“Ag, don’t be. It was a good poem. Really. Most of it. It rhymed, and - ah, fuck, Vince, what the hell do I know? I couldn’t write a fucking limerick to save my life. And now, if you’ll excuse me – “ Veld pushed his stool from the bar, and rather unsteadily got to his feet – “Since my days as a single man are numbered, I need to make the most of them. I’m going to take up my good friend Corneo’s offer and find a sweet little cherrie to sit on _this_ face.”

.

            In the small hours of the night, lying awake in a bed not his own, with a nameless girl asleep beside him, Veld tried to remember the details of his conversation with Vincent. Had he said something he shouldn’t have? He’d talked about Anneke. That was foolish, but not a disaster. He’d said he trusted Vincent. He _did_ trust Vincent. What about Tank, had he mentioned Tank? He felt as if they’d discussed Tank – but they couldn’t have done, because if they had, Vincent would have reacted, and Veld would have remembered his reaction.

He could not tell his Turks the truth about what happened with Tank. Not Sharon, not Vincent, not any of them. For the honour of Tank’s memory; for their own morale. He couldn’t tell Anneke. He couldn’t tell Julius. He could tell this girl here, but then he’d have to kill her.

Tank hadn’t left a note, or anything that might have explained why he’d done what he did. Veld would never know why Tank had done a runner. He had his suspicions, but he would never know for sure.

.

The following Friday he took the day off to go to Kalm and get married. The irony of his shotgun wedding was not lost on Veld, yet at the same time he was, in a strange way, glad to have the decision taken out of his hands. They spent their honeymoon at the Healen coast. He could only spare a weekend. On Monday morning he dropped her at his parents’ house, where she would now be living, gave her plenty of gil to spend on baby things, and promised he would come to visit as soon as he could.

Driving back to Midgar, he took the gold ring from his finger and hid it in his car’s glove compartment.

“You’re late this morning, Chief,” Sharon greeted him. “Nice weekend?”

“Quiet,” said Veld, leafing through his post.

“One of the Science minions was here. They left an envelope on your desk for you.”

The envelope contained a mission request from Faremis Gast. Dr Hojo and a team of scientists were re-locating to Nibelheim to begin a research project involving the specimen Jenova that would likely last for several years. Gast wanted a pair of Turks to go with them.

Veld pressed the intercom. “Sharon, get Vincent to come see me.”

Vincent was not enthusiastic. “I am hardly Dr Hojo’s favourite person,” he said. “After what happened to – After what happened. I would conduct myself as a professional, of course, but I cannot speak for the doctor.”

“He won’t remember it was you. He can recognise fifty million different kinds of cells but he has trouble telling people apart. And Faremis is asking for you specifically.”

“Why? It’s simple bodyguard duty. Any Turk could do this job.”

“Because you were involved in the Jenova excavation. This whole project – the fact that we have a complete Cetra in our possession – is highly classified information. You’re already in on it. Plus, obviously, Faremis knows you personally and he trusts you. Look, Vince, I’m not going to force you. Two years is a long time to be away. But you need to think very carefully before you refuse this request. Faremis has gone out of his way to give you a leg-up. And he’s a very powerful man, more powerful than I am.”

Vincent looked doubtful.

“Lots of dragons in Nibelheim,” Veld pointed out. “That’s good hunting.”

“You are beginning to make a persuasive argument.”

“Ag, you know you want to go. You want to see your Blue Lady again, admit it.”

“I must confess, I am curious to learn what they will discover about her.”

“Then go. It shows willing. If there’s a personality clash, I can always substitute you out. Lyn will go with you.”

Though it should have been Tank.

“You’ll have plenty of time on your hands to work on that poem,” Veld added.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Veld's slang:  
> lekker: great  
> cherrie: a girl  
> ag: kind of like the S.A. equivalent of "eh" or "hey"


	6. Children

Veld had just finished dictating this telegram when the phone rang. “Pieter? It’s me, your mother. Yes, I know you told me never to call you at work, but I thought you might like to know that Anneke’s gone into labour.”

.

            When they brought him his bawling baby daughter, Veld’s immediate thought was to be glad that he wouldn’t have to live with this noise on more than an occasional basis. His next thought was that he’d never be able to tell her apart from all the other babies in the nursery. This was a generic _baby_ , like every other baby he’d ever seen – not that he’d seen many, not close up like this. His line of work didn’t bring him into regular contact with babies. You couldn’t even tell from looking if the thing was a boy or a girl - not unless you opened its nappy, and Veld wasn’t going there. That was Anneke’s department.

Her screwed-up little face was puce from screaming. Her lashless eyes were a gummy grey-blue. Her bald head fit snugly into the palm of his hand. Her skull seemed oddly pointy. Was there something wrong with her? If there was, he’d move heaven and earth to make it right. He’d kill anyone who tried to hurt her -

All in a hot rush it came like a bullet knocking him sideways: love, ferocious and painful, as if his heart had been ripped from his body and now lay here cradled in his arms, screaming and flailing its tiny fists. She was so small, so vulnerable. And so angry! What a pair of lungs on her! She was a fighter, this one. And so, so beautiful.

The nursery door opened and a white-capped sister came in, followed by a doctor with a stethoscope around her neck. “Mr Veld. I see you’ve met your daughter. Better late than never.”

“I couldn’t get away. What’s wrong with her head?”

“Don’t be alarmed, that’s merely cosmetic. It’ll soon settle down. Your baby’s perfectly normal. But the delivery was difficult. I don’t know if you’ve spoken to your wife…?”

“She’s sleeping.”

“Yes. We’ve had to sedate her, I’m afraid. She’s in a great deal of pain. The birth was – traumatic, for her. She’ll have to stay in hospital for a while. We need to do some – um – repair work.”

“I see.”

“Your wife can’t go through this again. Do you understand, Mr Veld? She can never have another child.”

Perhaps lulled by the sound of their voices, the baby had stopped howling and was gazing up at Veld with eyes that held all the wisdom the world had forgotten. She lay relaxed and easy in his arms, confident that he wouldn’t drop her. No, not confident – she had no reason to suspect that being dropped was even a possibility, so new was she to this business called life.

Vincent had been right all along, Veld realised. Up until this moment, he hadn’t known what love was. But now he did.

He brushed his little finger against her knuckles. Her clenched fist opened like a flower. She grasped his finger and held on tight. Such strength in such a tiny person. Such determination.

“It’s all right,” said Veld. “We don’t need any other children.”

His ambition, his life’s work, the good cause his bad deeds served, these things had a name now. Felicia. It meant _happiness._

_._

“Oh sweet Shiva’s tits,” cried Sharon. “Chief, Vinnie got dumped.”

He snatched the slip of paper from her hand. “Don’t read my telegrams.”

“It was so juicy I couldn’t help myself.”

“Keep it to yourself, all right? This isn’t a subject for gossip.”

Sharon seemed to shrink a little in her chair, deflated. “Okay, Chief. I won’t breathe a word.”

“Good.”

He went into his office to think about what to do. Gast would be livid if his precious project got snagged on the rocks of a broken romance, but on the other hand he couldn’t start pulling Turks off missions every time they hit a snafu in their love lives.

It was a hell of a journey to Nibelheim, almost a week by boat, train, and truck, but maybe he should take the time to go there and find out exactly what was going on. And then, if necessary, pull Vincent off the mission. Or send this woman home. Whoever she was. Vincent wasn’t saying. A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell. Maybe she was nothing to do with Shinra. Maybe she was some local girl. Maybe Veld should find out, before he spent the best part of a month travelling to the butt-end of the world and back to sort out something that didn’t need sorting. He didn’t want to spend that much time away from Felicia if he could help it.

He shot off another telegram to Vincent, and by the end of the day had received an answer, composed in typical Vincent style:

It seemed to Veld that Vincent made a fair point. He’d turned into a good Turk, better, indeed, than Veld had hoped or expected. Vincent knew how to do his job. Was it right to penalise him for being honest - for yielding to the urge to tell somebody about his beloved? His work did not seem to be affected. He filed his reports on time. Lyn had no complaints. Gast seemed satisfied. There was, Veld concluded, no need to pull him from the mission.

.

            Like many new parents, Veld had become obsessed with time. He measured it, first in the days, then in the weeks of his daughter’s age. He counted the hours until he could see her again. When he walked through the streets of Midgar, he was often seized by the inexplicable urge to accost young mothers pushing prams and demand to know how old their baby was. His private calendar became a record of firsts: first smile, first tooth, first solid food, first time rolling over, first time standing up. Anneke had bought a cine camera and made a point of recording all these events for him so that he wouldn’t miss them, even though he was so rarely there.

The first time she waved good-bye when he left her to return to Midgar. The first time she called him _Dada_. These moments were burned into his memory.

A week after his daughter had taken her first steps – they’d called him at work to let him know the good news, and she had babbled delicious nonsense into the receiver – he received a very different kind of call.

“Piet? It’s me, Faremis. This is a terrible line. Are you sitting down? I have some bad news. Vincent has disappeared. I think he may – well, I think we may have to face the possibility that he’s dead.”

Veld stood up. “What? What do you mean?”

“Apparently he went into the mountains three days ago to hunt dragons. No one’s seen him since.”

Veld took a couple of steadying breaths. “People get lost in those mountains all the time. Vincent knows how to survive.”

“No, you don’t understand. We organised a search party – “

“You found his body?”

“No. We found his shoes. They were – well, they were burnt, Piet. To a crisp. And we found his gun. The one Grim left him. The materia were still in their slots.”

Veld was already shrugging into his suit jacket, one arm at a time, looking round for the valise he kept packed in case he needed to leave in a hurry. “I’m coming there. Faremis, do you hear me? I’m taking a helicopter. I’ll be there the day after tomorrow.”

.

            All the evidence pointed to a dragon kill. Dr Hojo and one of his junior assistants separately told Veld that they had seen Vincent walking up the path towards the reactor on the day he disappeared. Lyn, Vincent’s partner, said that Vincent had talked about going to hunt monsters. She was the one who had found Vincent’s Turks boots, lying far apart on the floor of a cave a little way off from the main path. Their leather had been turned to charcoal; their crepe soles had completely melted. She took Veld to show him the spot where she’d found the boots. Dragon dung lay scattered everywhere. There were no scorch marks on the cave walls. If a dragon had killed Vincent, it must done so elsewhere, then dragged the body to this cave. “Unless it swallowed the boots and spat them out later,” said Lyn unhappily. “Dragons do that sometimes.”

Back at the mansion, Veld asked Gast if he could see Vincent’s gun.

“I have it safe.” Gast retrieved a long wooden box from a shelf and brought it to the table. Veld lifted the lid. “I feel terrible about this,” Gast went on, taking off his glasses and wiping them with his handkerchief. “Just terrible. I was very fond of Vincent, as you know. I’ve known him since he was a small child. If I hadn’t insisted on him for this project, he might still be alive.”

Veld picked up the gun – a rare vintage Peacemaker - and squinted down its sight. Vincent had loved this gun. He took it everywhere with him. The Turks arsenal contained more modern, more powerful weapons, and sometimes Vincent used them, but even then he carried his Peacemaker as well. He would never have left this gun behind if he could help it.

Veld asked Gast, “Who found this?”

“Hojo.”

“I’d like to talk to him.”

“I’ll take you down there myself. Hojo’s very protective of his work space, and rather particular about who he allows into his laboratory. Even _I_ am sometimes forbidden entry.”

They descended to the basement of the mansion, walking one behind the other on the narrow spiral staircase. The windowless rooms were ablaze with mako-powered light. “One other thing,” said Gast. “Hojo’s under considerable strain right now. His wife’s very ill – “

“She’s expecting a baby, isn’t she?”

“The child came early, three weeks ago. It was touch and go, but they both pulled through. The baby’s flourishing, despite being so premature. His mother’s not recovering as fast as we’d like.”

Veld knew what that felt like. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Hojo’s had all the worry of her illness on top of the worry of becoming a new father, and he still has the entire lab to run without her support. She was his number two here. Brilliant woman.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“He’s not getting much sleep. What I’m saying is - go easy on him. He is invaluable to me.”

“Vincent was valuable to me,” said Veld.

They found Hojo sitting at a desk, his head in his hands, surrounded by a wall of books. He wasn’t happy to see them.

“Piet just wants to ask you a few questions,” said Gast.

“About that Turk, I presume? Very well – but keep it brief. I have my hands full here. The experiment is at a very delicate stage.”

“About Vincent Valentine’s gun…” Veld began.

“Yes?” said Hojo.

“You found it?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you find it?”

“On the reactor path not far from the cave where the female Turk found his boots. After I found the gun I searched either side of the path for some mark that would indicate which way he had gone, but I could see nothing. I picked up the gun and brought back here and gave it to Faremis. I think that covers everything.”

“Did you know it was his gun when you found it?”

“I recognised it, if that’s what you’re asking. We are a small team here, Commander.”

You’re a busy man, aren’t you, Doctor?” said Veld.

“Exceedingly.”

“How did you find the time to join the search party? Weren’t you needed here? The whole town was out looking for Vincent. Surely they could have spared you?”

Hojo’s eyes flickered over to Gast’s face. “Why am I being cross-examined?”

“Piet’s just doing his job,” said Gast; then, turning to Veld, went on, “It’s as he says, Piet. We’re a small team here. Everybody mucks in, taking turns with the cooking and the washing up, that sort of thing. Of course we all stopped what we were doing to look for Vincent. We’re all very distressed by his loss.”

“I’m sorry for what happened to him,” said Hojo, “But you can’t deny he brought it on himself. He should have known better than to go dragon-hunting single-handed. I’m afraid he was an overconfident fool who took on more than he could handle and paid the price for his arrogance. I suppose you’ll be sending us a new Turk now?”

Veld reminded himself that Hojo always talked this way. He reminded himself that Hojo didn’t understand emotions. One person was the same as another to him. Reminding himself of these things helped him resist the urge to punch Hojo in the face.

Much as he hated to admit it, Veld knew that Hojo was almost certainly right. Vincent was dead. The gun was the clincher. Only brute force could have parted Vincent from that gun.

Veld took the gun with him when he returned to Midgar. Eventually it found a home in the closet of the bedroom in his parents’ house that he shared with his wife when he was in Kalm. Veld occasionally took it out, cleaned it, checked that it was all in working order, and fired off a few rounds in Vincent’s memory.

Veld didn’t like unsolved mysteries. They irked his professional pride. And Vincent’s fate was not really a mystery. Nevertheless, because no body had ever been found, Veld in his lighter moments could fantasise that Vincent was still alive, prowling, scowling, hunting monsters, seducing women with his hound-dog charm and his bad poetry somewhere far away from Midgar. Vincent would have made a great monster hunter. Yet he was determined to be a Turk. It was the only thing he’d ever stuck at.

The Nibelheim locals had a legend about dead souls haunting the mountains, moving ever westwards, towards the sunset. Who knew? Maybe Vincent was still there, hunting dragons in spirit.

.

            The week after his daughter celebrated her eighteen-months half-birthday, Veld was summoned to a top level meeting involving himself, Dr Gast, and President Shinra. They wanted to share with him the results of the Jenova project, and discuss what it would mean for the future of the company.

“Imagine,” said Julius, “If we could bring the Cetra back to life, with all the power and knowledge they command! With a living Cetra in our possession, we could find the Promised Land.”

“Isn’t that just a fairy-tale?” said Veld.

“We thought the Cetra were a myth until Faremis found one. The truth is always stranger than fiction, Piet. Stranger and more wonderful.”

Gast explained that through gene-splicing techniques he and his two teams had managed to create a number of human foetuses containing Jenova’s Cetra DNA. Most of those foetuses had miscarried, but three of them had come to term: three healthy boys.

Veld had a hunch. “Hojo’s child is one of them, yes?”

Gast and the President exchanged glances. Gast slid a manila envelope across the table to Veld’s waiting hand. “All the data on the genetic donors is in there,” he said. Veld pulled a sheaf of papers from the envelope and flicked through them, reading silently.

“Both the fathers are on board, obviously,” said Gast. “Child A’s mother is an integral part of the program, and up till now she’s proved trustworthy, but we’ll need to keep a close eye on her. She may at some point decide to confide in her husband. Child G’s mother died giving birth to him. We’ve placed him with reliable foster parents. Child S likewise.”

“Hojo’s kid?”

“I don’t think it’s really helpful to think of the subjects in those terms. Hojo and Hollander are running these projects. That requires a certain emotional distance. It would be more constructive to think of the boys as Shinra’s children. We made them, after all.”

“Mrs Hojo’s dead too, I see.”

“Tragic,” sighed the President.

His own marriage of convenience was turning out to be a surprisingly happy one. Patricia Palmer was a clever girl who knew how to rein in her impulsive, visionary husband, and Julius had discovered he enjoyed being managed by such a gentle hand. The one fly in their ointment was her failure to conceive an heir. _Early days yet,_ Julius always said when the topic came up, but Veld knew he was growing impatient, and wondered how long it would be before Gast was brought in on the case. He doubted whether Patricia would stand for it.

“The boys will remain with their foster-parents until we see what powers they manifest. If any,” Gast added cautiously.

Veld left the meeting more determined than ever that his work life and his private life should stay as far apart as possible.

He was reserving judgement on the Jenova project. There was no reason to suppose the three boys would be unhappy. They were precious to Shinra and would be cared for accordingly. If Julius’ dream came true –and Julius’ dreams had a habit of coming true – those boys might grow up to change the course of history. It was too soon to feel sorry for them. Of course, if they failed to live up to the hopes Shinra had pinned on them, their fate would not be an enviable one. They might be lucky to end up in the SOLDIER program.

If the day ever came when the Jenova project needed to be wiped from the company’s records, Veld would be the one to do it. Gast and Julius had agreed with him on that. At least he could make sure they wouldn’t suffer. They’d never know what hit them. He hoped his services would not be required - not for many years, if ever.

Theirs would not be an ordinary childhood, but the childhood they were given would seem ordinary to them; they were too young to know any different. Children were malleable. How did the saying go? _Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man._ With a firm hand, and the right combination of affection and discipline, you could shape a child into whatever you wanted, or needed. Form its character. Embed the required values – loyalty, obedience, ruthlessness – in its naïve mind.   Nothing could replace a mother’s love, of course, but to compensate, such a child would have a sense of purpose. It would grow up confident of its value to the world. That was important, too.

As he was thus walking and mulling things over, Veld passed a jumble of building materials – pipes, roof tiles, steel girders, pallets and chipboard – that someone, presumably Shinra contractors, had dumped in a vacant lot behind a supermarket. Among the detritus was a large cardboard box lying on its side. Veld thought he saw it move. A monster, perhaps? This sector was infested with hedgehogs pies; they did a lot of damage starting fires. He stopped, waited, watched the box closely. Yes, it was definitely moving.

Not wanting his eyebrows singed, he cast the Wall he always carried, drew his gun, and approached the box with caution. While he was still a little distance away, he crouched down to see what was inside.

Out of the darkness a pair of human eyes stared back at him.

It was a child.

Veld moved a little closer. The eyes retreated deeper into the box. Veld could hear the sound of fingernails scrabbling against the cardboard. He moved closer. From the depths of the box came an unmistakeable snarl.

Veld drew the penlight from his pocket and directed the beam into the box. The child instantly curled into a ball, arms crossed over its head. Matted black hair hung around its shoulders. Except for a pair of filthy underpants, it was naked. Whether it was a boy or girl, Veld couldn’t tell. He guessed it was about three years old.

Midgar was full of abandoned children. It wasn’t Veld’s job to save them. Shinra maintained orphanages for that. On any other day he might have walked on, and maybe when he’d got back to the office he might, if he hadn’t forgotten the child by then, ask Sharon to call the Child Welfare division of Social Orthotics, let them know where they could pick the kid up.

Today, with his head full of thoughts of children and experiments and the future, it seemed to him that this encounter was no coincidence.

In his pocket he had a sandwich left over from the meeting. He held it out. “Food,” he said.

The child uncurled a little, raised its head, sniffed the air, and uncurled a little more, regarding Veld with wild, wary, intelligent black eyes. He saw it was Wutaian, or perhaps a half-breed. That explained a lot. Such children were practically unadoptable.

He could see it was hungry. Its ribs were showing through its skin. Yet it made no move towards the sandwich. For such a little thing, it had impressive self-control.

“Take it,” he said. “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you. It’s for you. Take it.”

Little by little he coaxed the child into the light. He flattered himself it could sense he meant it no harm. He gave it the sandwich. The child ate like a monkey, quickly but delicately, not losing a crumb. Veld could see now that it was a boy. There were bruises up and down its limbs, scorch marks and bites, perhaps from fights with other stray children or dogs or monsters. This _laaitie_ was a real tough one. His tiny muscles were rock solid.

The thought had come into Veld mind and wouldn’t budge: _Raised right, trained right, what a Turk a child like this would make. I could build him from scratch._

“Where’s your mummy?” said Veld.

The child looked at him blankly.

His sandwich had been devoured. “Still hungry?” asked Veld. The child neither moved nor spoke, but Veld could read the answer in his eyes. _Feed me_. Veld got to his feet. “Wait right here. I’ll be right back.”

He ran into the supermarket, grabbed a carton of milk and some bananas, threw gil at the checkout girl, and ran back again, thinking _If he hasn’t run away, if he’s still there, then he is meant to be mine. My boy._

The child had withdrawn into the cardboard box, but crawled out again when he saw Veld approach. Veld opened the milk carton, demonstrated how to drink from the spout, and put it into the child’s hands. The child tipped the carton up and got a noseful; Veld had to bite his lip so as not to laugh. But the child just spluttered, shook his head to disperse the drops, tried again, and got it right.

Veld put out a hand to touch the child’s head. He flinched away.

“It’s okay,” said Veld, using the same voice he used with his daughter. “I won’t hurt you. It’s okay, it’s okay.”

Eventually the child allowed Veld to get close enough to touch his hair – which was, as Veld had surmised, crawling with lice. It would all have to come off and be burnt. Behind the matted fringe, a strange spot, more like a tattoo than a mole, marked the dead centre of the child’s forehead.

“What’s your name, little one?”

The child gazed at him solemnly, unblinking.

Veld tapped his chest. “I’m Pieter. Pieter Veld. That’s my name. Who are you?”

“Tseng,” said the child.

It wasn’t a name from any language Veld had ever heard of, Wutaian or otherwise. For all he knew it wasn’t even a name; it could mean anything _, me_ or _thank you_ or even _bastard thrown out with the garbage,_ or it could be a mere random noise. Yet he rather liked the sound of it. Tseng. Like the plucking of a mythril string. Resonant. Tough, yet flexible. As a good Turk should be. It would do to be going on with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Veld's slang:  
> laaitie: a child, a boy, a young person


	7. Appendix: Map and Place-Names

Here's the map with my invented place-names. [Map source](http://www.finalfantasykingdom.net/finalfantasyviiworldmap.php):  unfortunately they don't credit the map-maker on their page. 

Am I the only person who thinks the Northern Continent looks like a startled chocobo?

 

**Here's an explanation of the place names for anyone who's interested**

Much as I’d like to pass myself off as a cunning linguist, pretty much everything here is thanks to Google Translate. If I’ve made a mistake, please tell me.

 The original makers of the game borrowed quite heavily from our world’s place-names, myths and languages. For consistency’s sake I’ve tried to do the same thing. I’ve also tried to avoid anything too fancy. If you translate the names back into English, they just mean things like “coast”, “big mountain” “island”, etc….

_._

_Midgar Region_

**Dalemead** – valley of help, kind of Olde English

**Dalemotte** – defensive valley, ditto

**Albion** – v. old name for British isles

**Healen** – place of healing. Obvs. Does anyone know where it’s canonically supposed to be on the map?

.

_Kalm Region_

**Verdeel Peninsula** – “verdeel” is Afrikaans for “split”. The western fork is the Waldis (whale) Peninsula; the eastern fork is the Haai (shark) Peninsula

 .

_The Grasslands_

Nomadic tribes have historically tended to dominate steppes and grasslands, so it’s no surprise we find the game’s one and only chocobo farm there. I borrowed my names for this region from historically nomadic tribes.

**Zuun Ereg** : Mongolian for “east coast”

**Tengerpart** : Hungarian for “coast”

**Iskuzai:**  (variant Azkuzai). another word for Scythian, warrior nomads of the classical world. In the world of FFVII, nomads would have ridden chocobos; the chocobo would have been as fundamental to their culture as the horse is to earth’s nomadic cultures. And “chook” is a slang word for chocobo, which is why President Shinra (and many other people) refer to the Izkuzai as “chook-fuckers”. The idea for this rather nasty slur came from the word the Germans used to refer to their Swiss neighbours during the Reformation, i.e. “cow-fuckers”.  The Swiss do love their cows. (I can say this 'coz I am one).

**Magas Heg:** Hungarian for High Mountain

. 

_Junon and Condor Region_

**Arcadia, Boeotia, Lucania** : all places in ancient Greece. The War of the Three Queens refers to a war that was fought between the queens of these three realms. I reckoned that for a weapons company to grow so rich and powerful, there had to be wealthy warring states eager to buy extremely large quantities of heavy duty weaponry. No company can get rich enough to become a totalitarian global monopoly of everything just by selling personal handguns and rifles to duck hunters. So - it was during the War of the Three Queens that Shinra Inc first came to prominence. By the end of the war, Shinra had become the de facto government controlling all three regions; two of the queens had been deposed, and the queen of Boeotia reduced to figurehead status, like poor old Mayor Domino in Midgar.

The time that elapsed between the end of the War of the Three Queens and the Great Grasslands War was about the same as between WWI and WWII. The mako powered technology that Shinra first developed during the War of the Three Queens advanced significantly during that time. Mako power was originally harnessed as a fuel source for large field guns; then, as has so often happened in real life, Shinra realised that their military technology could have civilian applications that would make them rich beyond the dreams of avarice. 

**Bovadem:** an ancient university that Shinra shut down, transferring all the faculty who were of any use to them to their new institutions of higher learning in Junon and Midgar. I don’t know what happened to the liberal arts professors; I guess they ended up working as baristas at ShinraCoffee. Bovadem is a Latin-y translation of “Oxford”, because it’s my alma mater and this is my story. I wanted to call the big river in that area "The Isis", because that's the name of the Thames where it flows through Oxford, but it's not really a good name to choose right now. 

**Cappanisia** : Nisos is "island" in Greek; Kappa is for the Cappawires who can be found in that region. Also, kappa sounds a bit like “head” in Latin.

The islands are, from north to south, Caputo, Kefali, and Seer, which is “head” in Latin, Greek and Hindi respectively.

**Galdia** : the semi-mythical land of the legendary hero Alfred and the Evil Dragon King, as per the play in Gold Saucer

 .

_Mideel_

**Chal Pakshee** means “running chicken” in Hindi

**Lamda** means "long"

 .

_Rocket Town Region_

**Forland** and **Smolland:** tbh I can’t remember now which language I used here, but it was one of the Scandinavian ones, since Rocket Town is so close to Nibelheim.

_'_

_East of Gold Saucer_

**Spinalonga:** long spine? Maybe sorta Spanish?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand that's it. 
> 
> EchoThruTheWoods, I apologise profusely for not giving you what you asked for. I did try to answer the prompt, but it kept demanding more context, and all this history and headcanon grew up around it. Anyway, I hope you found something in this fic to enjoy. I obviously had a lot of fun writing it and playing around with the telegrams and map and so on, probably more fun than anyone else will have reading it. So thank you, EchoThruTheWoods, thank you many times over for giving me this fabulous prompt, and thank you, readers all, for getting this far!!
> 
> Edited to add: one reader asked if they could have more of this story. For those who are interested, my account of Veld and his Before Crisis Turks can be found in my long (really, it's very long) chaptered fic "Death is Part of the Process" which is up almost in its entirety on fanfiction.net. If you just want to read more about Veld, Tseng, Ifalna and Aerith, you can find it in the fic "Tseng's backstory", which forms the bulk of chapter 15 of DIPOTP, "By Helicopter to Modeoheim". For more about President Shinra and his marriage to Patricia Palmer, you could try "Father and Son" which I wrote together with CameoAmalthea.


End file.
